Talk:Liberal eugenics/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Conservative eugenics? 2 Somewhat problematic 3 Los Angeles Times 4 Merge with eugenics ? 5 Liberal?

Conservative eugenics?

I added a few paragraphs here to stress the point that the linguistic attempt to label 20th-century eugenics programs as distinctly "conservative" (and to say that this, being "liberal", is a strong contrast), is historically misleading. Eugenics was embraced by many parts of the early 20th-century political spectrum and to say it was strictly "conservative" is wholly incorrect (there were left-wing, socialist eugenicists as well, such as Hermann Muller). It's additionally incorrect to say that "liberal eugenics", as defined, was not practiced in the early-20th century. The US and Germany both had programs and attempts to enact forms of "positive" eugenics, though they get less attention than the coercive forms of eugenics ("negative" eugenics). I just wanted to make it clear that this is a purposeful attempt at historical distancing, one which is fairly difficult to maintain, historically speaking. (This does not mean that it is necessarily "bad" or "evil" or "wrong", etc., though, but to try and disassociate it with the past is incorrect.) Also, I delinked the book because we don't need to tell people where to buy their book, and they can search amazon just like the rest of us. --Fastfission 15:44, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The mention of "conservative" eugenics was a mistake I made, while working to expand this article, which led Fasfission to go off on an interesting but pointless tangent to contradict it. As far as I know, no where will anyone find the mention of such a term in literature discussing "liberal" eugenics. The scientifically and historically correct contrast is between the possible liberal eugenics of the 21st century and the "authoritarian", "totalitarian", "fascist", or "nazi" eugenics of the 20th century. Loremaster 18:35, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's all OK, but all that was well-explained in the paragraphs that you deleted. Most eugenics in the old days was liberal by your definition, as Fastfission pointed out. I am going to replace the paragraphs and rewrite them to change conservative to authoritarian, per your discussion here. Otherwise someone readoing the article would not get an accurate picture of the contrast. -Willmcw 21:26, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Somewhat problematic

• The characterization of historical eugenics as being either "liberal" or "non-liberal" is somewhat problematic.

Why does this line keep getting deleted? Is it easy to distinguish "liberal eugenics" from the other kinds? -Willmcw 04:48, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

See the above discussion. Loremaster 05:04, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? You never responded to the discussion above. -Willmcw 15:11, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

I think what he means is that he didn't mean to characterize "historical eugenics" as "conservative" vs this one being "liberal". I'm not sure the line needs to stay but I think it should be noted in some way that it "historical eugenics" did not fall into a neat political category. What makes me suspicious about this sort of newspeak is that it is trying to turn "historical eugenics" into something which can easily be marginalized away and set aside, when the goals and even the methods of most of the historical eugenicists don't seem any different than this "liberal eugenics". However I think that this is already emphasized in the article in other places so perhaps the line can be dropped as awkward or unnecessary. --Fastfission 15:19, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1. Earlier eugenic policies could not acheive the ends they sought given the technology available at the time. 2. Coercive state sponsorship may have been the primary problem with past eugenics laws; eugenics freely pursued by individuals has no similar stigma. 3. The old eugenics would have required a continual selection for breeding of the fit, and a culling of the unfit. Liberal eugenics would permit in principle the conversion of all the unfit to the highest genetic level. 5. Refering to the new eugenics as "liberal" is NOT related to the political views of the proponents of this form of eugenics; it only relates to methodology and practice. Loremaster 19:01, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Regarding point #5, it sounds as if "liberal" is being implictly juxtaposed with "authoritarian" or "coercive", rather than "conservative". Is that the quality of "old eugenics" that distinguishes it from "liberal eugenics"? -Willmcw 19:17, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

Yes. That's what I've been trying to tell all of you from the beginning. Loremaster 22:56, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Though you are aware that not all "old eugenics" were coercive, right? -Willmcw 12:18, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

Of course. Loremaster 12:21, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Los Angeles Times

The Sunday (June 5, 2005) edition of the Los Angeles Times has a great, several-thousand word article on the so-called "Nobel sperm bank" and its founder, Robert K. Graham, putting it in the context of modern, positive eugenics. However, that article is entirely omitted from the online version of the Times. [1] (unstable link-probably good for just this week, and useless anway.) Editors with an interest in this topic and access to the paper or to a library may find useful information in the article. I intend to add some information from it to the relevant articles here. I wish it were more accessible, Cheers, -Willmcw 09:10, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Merge with eugenics ?

On Talk:Eugenics there's some talk about merging this article with Eugenics. Or maybe having a summary on eugenics, with a "see main article : Liberal eugenics" kind of link ? Anyway, before that could work the eugenics article would probably need a bit of reworking. Flammifer 7 July 2005 09:07 (UTC)

Liberal?

I object strongly to the word "liberal" as it has been applied as a modifier to "Eugenics". This terminology does not exist outside the context of Wikipedia, and with good reason. The only appropriate response by Wikipedia would be to allow articles with similar labels: "Conservative Nazism", "Conservative Speak", "Conservative Dogmatic Religious Claptrap" & etc. --Danshawen

Danshawen, have you taken the time to google the term "liberal eugenics"? The term is used by some of the most influential thinkers of our times (not that all the authors of the texts linked to below are necessarily among them)!

1. Nicholas Agar - Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement
2. Jürgen Habermas, On the way to liberal eugenics?
3. State-sponsored Liberal Eugenics Has Just Begun
4. Women's Bioethics Blog: Johann Hari: Why I support liberal eugenics
5. Relief and Shadow of New Liberal Eugenics

Etc, etc, etc. --Loremaster 19:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

EVERY ONE of those articles you have cited are recent, appearing after the Republican Revulsion. These aren't "great thinkers". With only one exception, they are just religious dogmatists, regurgitating their anti-stem cell research party line. Their thinking is addled, laundered, and biased. danshawen 21:03, 18 December 2006 (UTL)

danshawen, I think you may be conjuring the spectre of american political dualism where it isn't due. The term liberal eugenics is counterposed to authoriarian eugenics, which is to say, the popular conception of negative eugenics. Republican & Democrat arn't issues on the table here. As to the term not exsisting outside of Wikipedia, I can say that you are patently mistaken, as I came upon this article through the aforementioned Agar book, Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement. --mordicai. 02:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Danshawen's fanaticism seems to be clouding his or her judgement. --Loremaster 04:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)