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Eugenics and Other Evils
RETIRED
133 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1922
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2691 people want to read
About the author
G.K. Chesterton
4,650 books5,788 followersGilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 165 reviews
June 16, 2020
Since prehistorical times, humans have been domesticating and breeding animals, selecting the individuals they liked the best and shaping species to their own needs. That’s how we got cats, dogs, pigs, cows and the rest. Perplexingly enough, I don’t know that humans have ever thought of designing their own species in the same fashion. That’s until recently. That idea started to arise around the turn of the 19th century when Western religions were on the wane, and a new belief in human progress was spawning in the minds of a few forward-thinking philosophers. Not least of them, Friedrich Nietzsche.
One somewhat debatable way to look at Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch is to think of it as an “improved” version of the human type that we know. And one fallacious way to improve this human type is to select and scientifically design the individuals we deem fittest... But fittest to what end?
This topic was already in the air since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but it ended being quite fashionable and much written about in the first half of the 20th century. H.G. Wells imagined how vivisection could lead to a new sort of hybrid — and quite frankly shocking — human beast in The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). Aldous Huxley opened his novel Brave New World (1932) with an incubator, where human foetuses were being fashioned inside artificial wombs, to become this or that kind of individual, according to the needs of society.
In his political essay, Eugenics and Other Evils, G.K. Chesterton weighs in on this debate, with his usual wit. In his time, eugenics mainly translated into controlling marriages (say, pairing Melania Trump with Slavoj Žižek and hoping to get tall blond children with exceptional talking abilities — or forbidding them to pair lest they beget nincompoop and twitch-riddled gnomes with a lisp instead!). Indeed, it seems the British MPs of the time were considering in earnest the possibility to translate such a project into law. But in Chesterton’s view, the aim of the people who vindicate eugenics “is to prevent any person whom these propagandists do not happen to think intelligent from having any wife or children. Every tramp who is sulky, every labourer who is shy, every rustic who is eccentric, can quite easily be brought under such conditions as were designed for homicidal maniacs” (p. 10). A eugenics regulation would have opened the door to all sorts of abuse and segregation against the disadvantaged, the ill, the disabled or simply anyone who opposed or didn’t fall into the normative categories defined by a ruling elite. Eugenics is a way to “nip in the bud” all forms of humanity that do not comply with the standard values, and breed a herd of regimented and docile human cattle.
Only a few years after GKC published this little book, the Nazi party in Germany decided to implement a project of this kind. And while they were considering the extermination of jews, gipsies and gays, they simultaneously established the Lebensborn, a eugenics endeavour based on the idea of “racial hygiene”. It ended, of course, in utter catastrophe and no eugenics project has ever since been considered without severe mistrust.
But, with the current developments in genomics and artificial reproduction, coupled with the underlying desire of the public to commodify and “optimise” people’s traits and abilities, to shape them in conformity with an ideal of success and happiness, eugenics might well become a popular topic again. Not a reassuring one.
One somewhat debatable way to look at Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch is to think of it as an “improved” version of the human type that we know. And one fallacious way to improve this human type is to select and scientifically design the individuals we deem fittest... But fittest to what end?
This topic was already in the air since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but it ended being quite fashionable and much written about in the first half of the 20th century. H.G. Wells imagined how vivisection could lead to a new sort of hybrid — and quite frankly shocking — human beast in The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). Aldous Huxley opened his novel Brave New World (1932) with an incubator, where human foetuses were being fashioned inside artificial wombs, to become this or that kind of individual, according to the needs of society.
In his political essay, Eugenics and Other Evils, G.K. Chesterton weighs in on this debate, with his usual wit. In his time, eugenics mainly translated into controlling marriages (say, pairing Melania Trump with Slavoj Žižek and hoping to get tall blond children with exceptional talking abilities — or forbidding them to pair lest they beget nincompoop and twitch-riddled gnomes with a lisp instead!). Indeed, it seems the British MPs of the time were considering in earnest the possibility to translate such a project into law. But in Chesterton’s view, the aim of the people who vindicate eugenics “is to prevent any person whom these propagandists do not happen to think intelligent from having any wife or children. Every tramp who is sulky, every labourer who is shy, every rustic who is eccentric, can quite easily be brought under such conditions as were designed for homicidal maniacs” (p. 10). A eugenics regulation would have opened the door to all sorts of abuse and segregation against the disadvantaged, the ill, the disabled or simply anyone who opposed or didn’t fall into the normative categories defined by a ruling elite. Eugenics is a way to “nip in the bud” all forms of humanity that do not comply with the standard values, and breed a herd of regimented and docile human cattle.
Only a few years after GKC published this little book, the Nazi party in Germany decided to implement a project of this kind. And while they were considering the extermination of jews, gipsies and gays, they simultaneously established the Lebensborn, a eugenics endeavour based on the idea of “racial hygiene”. It ended, of course, in utter catastrophe and no eugenics project has ever since been considered without severe mistrust.
But, with the current developments in genomics and artificial reproduction, coupled with the underlying desire of the public to commodify and “optimise” people’s traits and abilities, to shape them in conformity with an ideal of success and happiness, eugenics might well become a popular topic again. Not a reassuring one.
May 26, 2011
For the most part, eugenics has receded as a respectable academic discipline. But while one would have a hard time finding blatant exponents of the idea of eugenics, the principles of eugenics are very much alive today. The common misconception is that they died with Nazism, but even a cursory glance at the social and political landscape proves that to be false.
So, while much has been done to discredit eugenics, its spectre still hovers around us today, threatening to snatch up the wage-earners, the poor, those in debt, and those considered feeble. I think, though, that as racism declines, the eugenicist will be more influenced by the net worth of the so-called “undesirables” and not their skin colour. Indeed, Chesterton even began to note this himself, a hundred years ago. It should be said of Chesterton that he was challenging eugenics when few others were. H G Wells, who enjoys more fame than his jovial contemporary, was a proponent. Certain Canadian provincial governments were involved in the forced sterilization of “undesirables.” Before Hitler, before the grisly details of Auschwitz and the other camps were engraved in the collective brain of Western society, eugenics was quite popular. And it was Chesterton, ever forward-thinking and prophetic and astute, who took eugenics to task before Hitler even applied to art school.
Chesterton’s critique centre on the reality of economic injustice in late-19th and early-20th century England, and how poverty (the primary targets of eugenics being the poor) had little to do with genetics and more to do with poisonous and destructive economic policies.
So, while much has been done to discredit eugenics, its spectre still hovers around us today, threatening to snatch up the wage-earners, the poor, those in debt, and those considered feeble. I think, though, that as racism declines, the eugenicist will be more influenced by the net worth of the so-called “undesirables” and not their skin colour. Indeed, Chesterton even began to note this himself, a hundred years ago. It should be said of Chesterton that he was challenging eugenics when few others were. H G Wells, who enjoys more fame than his jovial contemporary, was a proponent. Certain Canadian provincial governments were involved in the forced sterilization of “undesirables.” Before Hitler, before the grisly details of Auschwitz and the other camps were engraved in the collective brain of Western society, eugenics was quite popular. And it was Chesterton, ever forward-thinking and prophetic and astute, who took eugenics to task before Hitler even applied to art school.
Chesterton’s critique centre on the reality of economic injustice in late-19th and early-20th century England, and how poverty (the primary targets of eugenics being the poor) had little to do with genetics and more to do with poisonous and destructive economic policies.
June 11, 2012
Don't be fooled by the title or how old this book is. It is an amazing takedown of the entire basis of eugenic thought as well as a profound argument against unregulated capitalism. It not only does those, but highlight problem after problem that you never have even considered before. And it was done contra mundi, during a time when eugenics was considered even more respectable than evolution is today.
It doesn't do the book justice to summarize its many arguments, but I'll list a few just to give an idea.
-that it impossible to be a eugenicist because while sickness is the same among all men, health is if anything a balance specific to each type. It's easy to diagnose a broken leg, but how can you diagnose a healthy one? Or define it?
-that eugenicists often argue that poverty and the moral dissolution that comes from it are reasons to use eugenics, but they unconsciously believe that the poor's poverty is always fixed and will or even should ever change. He argues damningly that the reasons why the rich embrace this is because their wealth is dependent on keeping other men poor and beaten down so they can accept starvation wages.
-That eugenics and its mindset are negative without positive, and mad. A master tells a slave he may sleep here and no other place, or he will kill him. A eugenicist tells a tramp that he cannot sleep in the park or the woods, but refuses to give him any place to sleep at all. The master treats his slave harshly, denying him liberty, but at least he treats him as a living being. The eugenicist treats him as a mass, or a thing.
It's all done in Chesterton's signature style: clear, lucid, using paradox and example. It's not just attacking eugenics, but the foundations of modern capitalism and law that create the conditions for it, and it's sure to challenge anyone regardless of their political persuasion.
The physical book also adds appendixes that show just how prevalent eugenic thought was. Chesterton was one of the few voices in opposition of it, and you'd be not a little horrified at the abyss we nearly descended into. Whether reading it free or buying the paperback it's well worth it. A timeless treasure that is even more relevant today than then.
It doesn't do the book justice to summarize its many arguments, but I'll list a few just to give an idea.
-that it impossible to be a eugenicist because while sickness is the same among all men, health is if anything a balance specific to each type. It's easy to diagnose a broken leg, but how can you diagnose a healthy one? Or define it?
-that eugenicists often argue that poverty and the moral dissolution that comes from it are reasons to use eugenics, but they unconsciously believe that the poor's poverty is always fixed and will or even should ever change. He argues damningly that the reasons why the rich embrace this is because their wealth is dependent on keeping other men poor and beaten down so they can accept starvation wages.
-That eugenics and its mindset are negative without positive, and mad. A master tells a slave he may sleep here and no other place, or he will kill him. A eugenicist tells a tramp that he cannot sleep in the park or the woods, but refuses to give him any place to sleep at all. The master treats his slave harshly, denying him liberty, but at least he treats him as a living being. The eugenicist treats him as a mass, or a thing.
It's all done in Chesterton's signature style: clear, lucid, using paradox and example. It's not just attacking eugenics, but the foundations of modern capitalism and law that create the conditions for it, and it's sure to challenge anyone regardless of their political persuasion.
The physical book also adds appendixes that show just how prevalent eugenic thought was. Chesterton was one of the few voices in opposition of it, and you'd be not a little horrified at the abyss we nearly descended into. Whether reading it free or buying the paperback it's well worth it. A timeless treasure that is even more relevant today than then.
December 29, 2020
Chesterton at his most lucid and persuasive, arguing forcefully against post-WWI British schemes to establish legal eugenics regimes. (The same thing was going on in the US at the same time, culminating in the Eugenics Society’s notorious 1927 test case Buck v. Bell, which went all the way to the Supreme Court and resulted in a decision upholding mandatory sterilization laws for the “feebleminded,” a decision encapsulated in one of the most mean-spirited court opinions in the Court’s history, authored by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.)
Chesterton argues that eugenicist advocates are overenthusiastic about an untested and highly theoretical “science,” that they cannot possibly have the iron grasp on heredity that they claim, and that the legal measures proposed for the implementation of their plans will create a division of haves and have-nots more cold blooded and brutal than anything established by the spoliations of late nineteenth century industrial capitalism. Urban industrialism and the cruelties of commercialism have already robbed the poor of their dignity and their private property, he argues, so the plans of the eugenists to take away even the family and the freedom to choose a mate and be fruitful—one of the only licit pleasures left to the proletariat, he notes—is both of a piece with modern social Darwinism and an unprecedented monstrosity.
If the hubris and cruelty of the eugenics movement are staggering, even more so are their condescension to the poor, whom they propose to help by slowly winnowing them, and their lack of awareness of their own elitism, as they are never the object of their proposed plans but, should they get their way, the autocratic enforcers. Chesterton rightly discerns that the cult of the expert—a fin de siecle obsession that has never really left us—is ultimately about establishing an unaccountable new hierarchy of powerful elites.
Chesterton’s arguments strikingly anticipate the shape of much modern argument about issues like abortion on demand and other bioethical questions—not to mention the rise of divorce, the establishment of intrusive state-mandated medical regulations, and the confiscation of children by the state on grounds of hygiene or ever shifting psychological criteria—and his arguments against “scientific” interference with birth as well as birth control and the ever more intrusive top-down government control of everyday life feel very prescient indeed.
Not everything in the book is on target. His lengthy tangent on capitalism—a favorite Chesterton hobbyhorse—feels too much like a tangent, but where he strikes home, he’s excellent, and his feel for the larger underlying assumptions of the issues of the day make this lesser known book still shockingly relevant.
I first read this probably a decade ago. I’ve just listened to the excellent audiobook read by Derek Perkins. I recommend it, though a print edition with minor annotations to explain who some of the now more obscure figures of the Edwardian eugenics movement may be preferable.
Chesterton argues that eugenicist advocates are overenthusiastic about an untested and highly theoretical “science,” that they cannot possibly have the iron grasp on heredity that they claim, and that the legal measures proposed for the implementation of their plans will create a division of haves and have-nots more cold blooded and brutal than anything established by the spoliations of late nineteenth century industrial capitalism. Urban industrialism and the cruelties of commercialism have already robbed the poor of their dignity and their private property, he argues, so the plans of the eugenists to take away even the family and the freedom to choose a mate and be fruitful—one of the only licit pleasures left to the proletariat, he notes—is both of a piece with modern social Darwinism and an unprecedented monstrosity.
If the hubris and cruelty of the eugenics movement are staggering, even more so are their condescension to the poor, whom they propose to help by slowly winnowing them, and their lack of awareness of their own elitism, as they are never the object of their proposed plans but, should they get their way, the autocratic enforcers. Chesterton rightly discerns that the cult of the expert—a fin de siecle obsession that has never really left us—is ultimately about establishing an unaccountable new hierarchy of powerful elites.
Chesterton’s arguments strikingly anticipate the shape of much modern argument about issues like abortion on demand and other bioethical questions—not to mention the rise of divorce, the establishment of intrusive state-mandated medical regulations, and the confiscation of children by the state on grounds of hygiene or ever shifting psychological criteria—and his arguments against “scientific” interference with birth as well as birth control and the ever more intrusive top-down government control of everyday life feel very prescient indeed.
Not everything in the book is on target. His lengthy tangent on capitalism—a favorite Chesterton hobbyhorse—feels too much like a tangent, but where he strikes home, he’s excellent, and his feel for the larger underlying assumptions of the issues of the day make this lesser known book still shockingly relevant.
I first read this probably a decade ago. I’ve just listened to the excellent audiobook read by Derek Perkins. I recommend it, though a print edition with minor annotations to explain who some of the now more obscure figures of the Edwardian eugenics movement may be preferable.
August 14, 2012
If a gross injustice appeared disguised in scientific lingo and talk of progress, would I recognize it for what it is? That was the question I had in mind as I started this book. I greatly admire Chesterton and his contemporaries for recognizing eugenics for the monster it was, and without the benefit of hindsight.
Few writers can make me feel so utterly uneducated and dimwitted as Chesterton can. But somehow the challenge is rewarding rather than defeating. This book challenged my views on the proper role of government, science, and medicine in society. One example: he argues that to make vagrancy a crime is lunacy-- circumstances conspire to take away a man's home, so we lock him up for the crime of not having one. He also argues that the capitalist/industrial system had taken all the bad parts of socialism without the more positive aspects. Provocative stuff, particularly in today's political climate. I am still processing his arguments and expect to re-read this at some point.
Few writers can make me feel so utterly uneducated and dimwitted as Chesterton can. But somehow the challenge is rewarding rather than defeating. This book challenged my views on the proper role of government, science, and medicine in society. One example: he argues that to make vagrancy a crime is lunacy-- circumstances conspire to take away a man's home, so we lock him up for the crime of not having one. He also argues that the capitalist/industrial system had taken all the bad parts of socialism without the more positive aspects. Provocative stuff, particularly in today's political climate. I am still processing his arguments and expect to re-read this at some point.
May 6, 2010
Chesterton began this book in the 1910’s, before eugenics realized its full horror in the holocaust, but it is a disturbingly prophetic and surprisingly poignant book even in our own day. What makes this book so arresting is that it is about far more than eugenics: it is about how evil succeeds subtly, about politics, and about economics.
Especially interesting was Chesterton's categorization of the four types of defenders of eugenics, because these categories can apply to the defenders of a great many social policies, past and present, and they describe well the various kinds of insufficient arguments used in political discourse. There are the Euphemists, who do not call a policy by its real name or speak of it in blunt language, but use scientific terminology and much verbosity to disguise its more disturbing ramifications. (“I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them ‘The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generation does not become disproportionate and intolerable,…’; say this to them and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them, ‘Murder your mother,’ and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same.”) Then there are the Casuists, who equate their more disturbing policies with much more limited policies and suggest that if you permit the one, you must concede the other. (“Suppose I say, ‘I dislike this spread of Cannibalism in the West End restaurants.’ Somebody is sure to say, ‘Well, after all, Queen Eleanor when she sucked blood from her husband’s arm was a cannibal.’ What is one to say to such people? One can only say, ‘Confine yourself to sucking poisoned blood from people’s arms, and I permit you to call yourself by the glorious title of Cannibal.’”) Next are the Autocrats, who trust that their proposed reforms will, despite all possible concerns, work out okay, because they’ll be there to make sure they work out okay. (“Where they will be, and for how long, they do not explain very clearly…And these people most certainly propose to be responsible for a whole movement after it has left their hands.”) Then there are the Endeavourers, who optimistically rely on their honest attempts to deal with a problem, without bothering to determine what the effects of their policies will be. (“[T:]he best thing the honest Endeavourer could do would be to make an honest attempt to know what he is doing. And not to do anything else until he has found out.”) Finally, there is a category “so hopeless and futile” that Chesterton says he cannot think of a name for them. “But whenever anyone attempts to argue rationally for or against any existent and recognizable thing, such as [a specific piece of:] legislation, there are always people who begin to chop hay about Socialism and Individualism; and say, ‘YOU object to all State interference…’” But, Chesterton insists, “I am not going to be turned from the discussion of that direct issue to bottomless botherations about Socialism and Individualism, or the relative advantages of always turning to the right and always turning to the left.”
Chesterton offers insight, too, into how tyranny develops, how “the excuse for the last oppression will always serve as well for the next oppression.” And he predicts a state that is on its way to arriving, and has, in small part, already arrived: “our civilization will find itself in an interesting situation, not without humour; in which the citizen is still supposed to wield imperial powers over the ends of the earth, but has admittedly no power over his own body and soul at all. He will still be consulted by politicians about whether opium is good for China-men, but not about whether ale is good for him. He will be cross-examined for his opinions about the danger of allowing Kamskatka to have a war-fleet, but not about allowing his own child to have a wooden sword.”
I credit Chesterton with partly revising my view of Socialism, which I have always seen as a system that, unlike Capitalism, does not take into account the fact of original sin (and therefore assumes that a redistribution of wealth could actually work without causing many to stop working altogether). While I still think socialism overlooks human motivations, and that, practically speaking, Capitalism makes better outcomes of a fallen world, I can now agree with Chesterton that Socialism is not actually (as I formerly believed) a system founded primarily on naïve optimism. “The Socialist system,” he writes, “in a more special sense than any other, is founded not on optimism but on original sin. It proposes that the State, as the conscience of the community, should possess all primary forms of property; and that obviously on the ground that men cannot be trusted to own or barter or combine or compete without injury to themselves. Just as a State might own all the guns lest people should shoot each other, so this State would own all the gold and land lest they should cheat or rackrent or exploit each other….it seems almost incredible that anybody ever thought it optimistic.” The problem, of course, is that the State too is composed of fallen men. Socialism and Capitalism are both, Chesterton argues, types of prisons, but at least in the prison of Capitalism, there is more chance of escape. “Capitalism is a corrupt prison. That is the best that can be said for Capitalism. But it is something to be said for it; for a man is a little freer in that corrupt prison than he would be in a complete prison. As a man can find one jailer more lax than another, so he could find one employer more kind than another; he has at least a choice of tyrants.” In a Socialist system, however, “he finds the same tyrant at every turn.”
In any event, we now have neither Socialism nor Capitalism, but a horrid compromise, which Chesterton describes well: “It may be said of Socialism, therefore, that its friends recommended it as increasing equality, while its foes resisted it as decreasing liberty….The compromise eventually made was one of the most interesting and even curious cases in history. It was decided to do everything that had ever been denounced in Socialism, and nothing that had ever been desired in it…we proceeded to prove that it was possible to sacrifice liberty without gaining equality….In short, people decided that it was impossible to achieve any of the good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves by achieving all the bad.”
Sometimes Chesterton requires great patience to follow. He will move from medieval planning to the American colonies to Shakespeare to the French War in a matter of pages, and one cannot help but wonder, “Where is this going? What does this have to do with the topic of his book?” But if you are patient, the connections do come, and they are often rewarding. And there is always wit sprinkled throughout his work; even while reading a volume on so serious and heavy a topic as “Eugenics and other evils,” I found myself laughing out loud.
Especially interesting was Chesterton's categorization of the four types of defenders of eugenics, because these categories can apply to the defenders of a great many social policies, past and present, and they describe well the various kinds of insufficient arguments used in political discourse. There are the Euphemists, who do not call a policy by its real name or speak of it in blunt language, but use scientific terminology and much verbosity to disguise its more disturbing ramifications. (“I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them ‘The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generation does not become disproportionate and intolerable,…’; say this to them and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them, ‘Murder your mother,’ and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same.”) Then there are the Casuists, who equate their more disturbing policies with much more limited policies and suggest that if you permit the one, you must concede the other. (“Suppose I say, ‘I dislike this spread of Cannibalism in the West End restaurants.’ Somebody is sure to say, ‘Well, after all, Queen Eleanor when she sucked blood from her husband’s arm was a cannibal.’ What is one to say to such people? One can only say, ‘Confine yourself to sucking poisoned blood from people’s arms, and I permit you to call yourself by the glorious title of Cannibal.’”) Next are the Autocrats, who trust that their proposed reforms will, despite all possible concerns, work out okay, because they’ll be there to make sure they work out okay. (“Where they will be, and for how long, they do not explain very clearly…And these people most certainly propose to be responsible for a whole movement after it has left their hands.”) Then there are the Endeavourers, who optimistically rely on their honest attempts to deal with a problem, without bothering to determine what the effects of their policies will be. (“[T:]he best thing the honest Endeavourer could do would be to make an honest attempt to know what he is doing. And not to do anything else until he has found out.”) Finally, there is a category “so hopeless and futile” that Chesterton says he cannot think of a name for them. “But whenever anyone attempts to argue rationally for or against any existent and recognizable thing, such as [a specific piece of:] legislation, there are always people who begin to chop hay about Socialism and Individualism; and say, ‘YOU object to all State interference…’” But, Chesterton insists, “I am not going to be turned from the discussion of that direct issue to bottomless botherations about Socialism and Individualism, or the relative advantages of always turning to the right and always turning to the left.”
Chesterton offers insight, too, into how tyranny develops, how “the excuse for the last oppression will always serve as well for the next oppression.” And he predicts a state that is on its way to arriving, and has, in small part, already arrived: “our civilization will find itself in an interesting situation, not without humour; in which the citizen is still supposed to wield imperial powers over the ends of the earth, but has admittedly no power over his own body and soul at all. He will still be consulted by politicians about whether opium is good for China-men, but not about whether ale is good for him. He will be cross-examined for his opinions about the danger of allowing Kamskatka to have a war-fleet, but not about allowing his own child to have a wooden sword.”
I credit Chesterton with partly revising my view of Socialism, which I have always seen as a system that, unlike Capitalism, does not take into account the fact of original sin (and therefore assumes that a redistribution of wealth could actually work without causing many to stop working altogether). While I still think socialism overlooks human motivations, and that, practically speaking, Capitalism makes better outcomes of a fallen world, I can now agree with Chesterton that Socialism is not actually (as I formerly believed) a system founded primarily on naïve optimism. “The Socialist system,” he writes, “in a more special sense than any other, is founded not on optimism but on original sin. It proposes that the State, as the conscience of the community, should possess all primary forms of property; and that obviously on the ground that men cannot be trusted to own or barter or combine or compete without injury to themselves. Just as a State might own all the guns lest people should shoot each other, so this State would own all the gold and land lest they should cheat or rackrent or exploit each other….it seems almost incredible that anybody ever thought it optimistic.” The problem, of course, is that the State too is composed of fallen men. Socialism and Capitalism are both, Chesterton argues, types of prisons, but at least in the prison of Capitalism, there is more chance of escape. “Capitalism is a corrupt prison. That is the best that can be said for Capitalism. But it is something to be said for it; for a man is a little freer in that corrupt prison than he would be in a complete prison. As a man can find one jailer more lax than another, so he could find one employer more kind than another; he has at least a choice of tyrants.” In a Socialist system, however, “he finds the same tyrant at every turn.”
In any event, we now have neither Socialism nor Capitalism, but a horrid compromise, which Chesterton describes well: “It may be said of Socialism, therefore, that its friends recommended it as increasing equality, while its foes resisted it as decreasing liberty….The compromise eventually made was one of the most interesting and even curious cases in history. It was decided to do everything that had ever been denounced in Socialism, and nothing that had ever been desired in it…we proceeded to prove that it was possible to sacrifice liberty without gaining equality….In short, people decided that it was impossible to achieve any of the good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves by achieving all the bad.”
Sometimes Chesterton requires great patience to follow. He will move from medieval planning to the American colonies to Shakespeare to the French War in a matter of pages, and one cannot help but wonder, “Where is this going? What does this have to do with the topic of his book?” But if you are patient, the connections do come, and they are often rewarding. And there is always wit sprinkled throughout his work; even while reading a volume on so serious and heavy a topic as “Eugenics and other evils,” I found myself laughing out loud.
May 27, 2021
I believe it was @Megan Chappie who told me I should read this one? And, as always where Chesterton is concerned, she was right!
Ahh, I love Chesterton so much. SO much.
Just...he takes down Eugenics to its bases, reduction ad absurdum, so easily! And then goes on to attack Socialism, and Capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, and modern vagrancy laws, and defends the feudal system, and...it was awesome. Epic, even.
(Oh, oh, and his thoughts on health! YES!)
And his quotes!
"It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists."
"If you let loose a law, it will do as a dog does. It will obey its own nature, not yours."
"It is this inability to return within rational limits after a legitimate extravagance that is the really dangerous disorder." (The Catholic view of feasting and fasting in a nutshell.)
And my personal favorite:
"It happened one day that an atheist and a man were standing together on a doorstep; and the atheist said, 'It is raining.' To which the man replied, 'What is raining?': which question was the beginning of a violent quarrel and a lasting friendship. I will not touch upon any heads of the dispute, which doubtless included Jupiter Pluvius, the Neuter Gender, Pantheism, Noah's Ark, Mackintoshes, and the Passive Mood."
It is my pet theory that for all the fictional books by Lewis, Chesterton, and probably others, that the main "thesis" or idea behind the fiction may also be found in their nonfictional books, and this is the germ of The Ball and the Cross. Stated in a very different way. But the similar idea. (Come to think of it: the exploration of madness in here also very much points to TBatC.)
I also had no idea that Eugenics had gotten so far in England before WWII...in some ways, we probably should thank God for the good outcomes of WWII, including the exposure to the world of the evils of Eugenics carried to its "logical" end. I know that Eugenic theories and ideas still exist (one need look no farther than the large number of abortions due to the diagnosis of Down Syndrome), but thank God, they are much less mainstream than they used to be.
4 stars, I think, with the potential to rise on a reread!
Ahh, I love Chesterton so much. SO much.
Just...he takes down Eugenics to its bases, reduction ad absurdum, so easily! And then goes on to attack Socialism, and Capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, and modern vagrancy laws, and defends the feudal system, and...it was awesome. Epic, even.
(Oh, oh, and his thoughts on health! YES!)
And his quotes!
"It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists."
"If you let loose a law, it will do as a dog does. It will obey its own nature, not yours."
"It is this inability to return within rational limits after a legitimate extravagance that is the really dangerous disorder." (The Catholic view of feasting and fasting in a nutshell.)
And my personal favorite:
"It happened one day that an atheist and a man were standing together on a doorstep; and the atheist said, 'It is raining.' To which the man replied, 'What is raining?': which question was the beginning of a violent quarrel and a lasting friendship. I will not touch upon any heads of the dispute, which doubtless included Jupiter Pluvius, the Neuter Gender, Pantheism, Noah's Ark, Mackintoshes, and the Passive Mood."
It is my pet theory that for all the fictional books by Lewis, Chesterton, and probably others, that the main "thesis" or idea behind the fiction may also be found in their nonfictional books, and this is the germ of The Ball and the Cross. Stated in a very different way. But the similar idea. (Come to think of it: the exploration of madness in here also very much points to TBatC.)
I also had no idea that Eugenics had gotten so far in England before WWII...in some ways, we probably should thank God for the good outcomes of WWII, including the exposure to the world of the evils of Eugenics carried to its "logical" end. I know that Eugenic theories and ideas still exist (one need look no farther than the large number of abortions due to the diagnosis of Down Syndrome), but thank God, they are much less mainstream than they used to be.
4 stars, I think, with the potential to rise on a reread!
August 22, 2018
ENGLISH: At first I thought that this book would be outdated, as Eugenics, which was a problem in 1917, when the book was written, would no longer be a problem. But then, in the second part, I saw that just the name has been abandoned, due to the fact that Hitler appropriated it, but the contents are still outstanding. In fact, Eugenics, which at the time Chesterton was writing was a capitalist conspiracy to keep the lower classes controlled, is now a capitalist conspiracy to keep the world population controlled. The world powers (namely big financiers such as Soros, and the governments of the European countries, either socialist or rightist) have taken control of the U.N. and are pushing and putting pressure for abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality in the Third World countries so as to control their population. Seen at this light, Chesterton's book is tragically up to date, although the terminology he uses and the actual examples he gives may be outdated.
ESPAÑOL: Al principio pensé que este libro estaría pasado de moda, ya que la Eugenesia, que era un problema en 1917, cuando se escribió el libro, habría dejado de serlo. Pero al llegar a la segunda parte, vi que el nombre ha sido abandonado, porque Hitler se lo apropió, pero el contenido aún está al día. De hecho, la Eugenesia, que en el momento en que Chesterton escribía era una conspiración capitalista para mantener controladas a las clases bajas, ahora es una conspiración capitalista para mantener controlada a la población mundial. Las potencias mundiales (los grandes financieros como Soros y los gobiernos de los países europeos, ya sean socialistas o de derechas) han tomado el control de la ONU y están presionando para imponer el aborto, la eutanasia y la homosexualidad en los países del Tercer Mundo, a fin de controlar su población. Visto a esta luz, el libro de Chesterton está trágicamente al día, aunque la terminología que emplea y los ejemplos concretos que da no estén actualizados.
ESPAÑOL: Al principio pensé que este libro estaría pasado de moda, ya que la Eugenesia, que era un problema en 1917, cuando se escribió el libro, habría dejado de serlo. Pero al llegar a la segunda parte, vi que el nombre ha sido abandonado, porque Hitler se lo apropió, pero el contenido aún está al día. De hecho, la Eugenesia, que en el momento en que Chesterton escribía era una conspiración capitalista para mantener controladas a las clases bajas, ahora es una conspiración capitalista para mantener controlada a la población mundial. Las potencias mundiales (los grandes financieros como Soros y los gobiernos de los países europeos, ya sean socialistas o de derechas) han tomado el control de la ONU y están presionando para imponer el aborto, la eutanasia y la homosexualidad en los países del Tercer Mundo, a fin de controlar su población. Visto a esta luz, el libro de Chesterton está trágicamente al día, aunque la terminología que emplea y los ejemplos concretos que da no estén actualizados.
April 14, 2011
I write down commonplaces as I read books: little items worthy, as N. D. Wilson said, of imitation and remembrance. I have several of these empty, unlined notebooks filled, and have broken tradition with Chesterton in not actually keeping track. With Tolkien, I devoted an entire commonplace book. With Chesterton, I'm not even going to bother trying. His complete works are contained in 37 (or more) large volumes put out by Ignatius Press, and I will just have to allow that to be my Chesterton commonplace book, though I will continue adding in some of his best.
This book, Eugenics and Other Evils, is about what it says it's about, which is odd enough, as Chesterton stays remarkably and uncharacteristically on topic. I think having a target to dismantle has something to do with it, but not really a whole lot, as he proves the impossibility of Eugenics in a single sentence somewhere towards the middle of the book. The other possibility is that his topic is a large enough cage for his mind to momentarily content itself within its confines, which seems more realistic.
Chesterton is always sheer delight to read, always fun, always unbelievably brilliant and flippant and enormous, but I had rarely encountered him with an axe in his hand, and he proves Lewis right: for the child with an axe, the joy is in chopping. This book could has a great deal of writing against government interference in the private sphere, and is written defending the old ways, the noble and chivalrous ways over and against the new ways, the stainless steel and minds too close to Saruman's in their obsession with wheels and machines. The eugenist desires to improve the overall quality of life in the same way that Nietschze did, simply a bit earlier. Instead of letting the diseased and weak die, the eugenist just ensures that they aren't ever born by preventing those genetically prone to weakness and disease from breeding, which was a staggeringly popular idea.
Indeed, it was the single driving influence in the life of the one person whose effect in our century alone has outweighed Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot and every other dictator we've seen. This person has caused more deaths than all of our enlightened genocides and all of the the Medieaval plagues. Combined. Eugenics was the inspiration of that madonna of death, Margaret Sanger. And we think eugenics is a bad joke. In reality, it was a very good joke, an evil joke, but skillful, and we are the punchline, though it turned out to be more indiscriminate than was originally intended.
Perhaps I've read too much Chesterton: I'm acquiring his habits without the skill. Or perhaps I've been up too long. A book review has turned into a tirade against Planned Parenthood. Blame it on whatever you like; I'll rectify it here: the book was magnificent, and I'm going to bed.
This book, Eugenics and Other Evils, is about what it says it's about, which is odd enough, as Chesterton stays remarkably and uncharacteristically on topic. I think having a target to dismantle has something to do with it, but not really a whole lot, as he proves the impossibility of Eugenics in a single sentence somewhere towards the middle of the book. The other possibility is that his topic is a large enough cage for his mind to momentarily content itself within its confines, which seems more realistic.
Chesterton is always sheer delight to read, always fun, always unbelievably brilliant and flippant and enormous, but I had rarely encountered him with an axe in his hand, and he proves Lewis right: for the child with an axe, the joy is in chopping. This book could has a great deal of writing against government interference in the private sphere, and is written defending the old ways, the noble and chivalrous ways over and against the new ways, the stainless steel and minds too close to Saruman's in their obsession with wheels and machines. The eugenist desires to improve the overall quality of life in the same way that Nietschze did, simply a bit earlier. Instead of letting the diseased and weak die, the eugenist just ensures that they aren't ever born by preventing those genetically prone to weakness and disease from breeding, which was a staggeringly popular idea.
Indeed, it was the single driving influence in the life of the one person whose effect in our century alone has outweighed Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot and every other dictator we've seen. This person has caused more deaths than all of our enlightened genocides and all of the the Medieaval plagues. Combined. Eugenics was the inspiration of that madonna of death, Margaret Sanger. And we think eugenics is a bad joke. In reality, it was a very good joke, an evil joke, but skillful, and we are the punchline, though it turned out to be more indiscriminate than was originally intended.
Perhaps I've read too much Chesterton: I'm acquiring his habits without the skill. Or perhaps I've been up too long. A book review has turned into a tirade against Planned Parenthood. Blame it on whatever you like; I'll rectify it here: the book was magnificent, and I'm going to bed.
October 19, 2018
I love old, forgotten, underrated books which present good to excellent pictures of now. Eugenics and Other Evils was published back in 1922 at the beginning of the last century and here we are almost a century later still wrangling over these same issues and heading down the same wrong road, still can't get it right. Ah, humanity.... Quo vadis? (Latin: Where are you going?) And no, I don't really know any Latin.
I enjoyed this book. G.K. Chesterton, theologian, philosopher, poet, journalist, etc. of the detective series, Father Brown, takes the subject of eugenics (population control), the impoverished, and some of the -isms and presents essays of debate and wit linking them all together.
I hope to read more of his works.
Eugenics and Other Evils can be read free online at the following.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25308
https://archive.org/details/cu3192401...
I enjoyed this book. G.K. Chesterton, theologian, philosopher, poet, journalist, etc. of the detective series, Father Brown, takes the subject of eugenics (population control), the impoverished, and some of the -isms and presents essays of debate and wit linking them all together.
I hope to read more of his works.
Eugenics and Other Evils can be read free online at the following.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25308
https://archive.org/details/cu3192401...
February 3, 2022
Chesterton was a prolific and incisive cultural critic during the early 20th century and it’s remarkable how many of his essays are still relevant today. Published in 1922, most of this book addresses the Eugenics movement which was gaining steam in England. Today, many (but not all) of their proposals are regarded as morally repugnant, but it should be remembered that at the time Chesterton was courageously arguing against a progressive ideology that was endorsed and promoted by the wealthy and educated elite.
When it came to politics, Chesterton challenged both capitalism and socialism, observing that each produced different types of injustices. He affirmed the importance of property rights and personal freedoms, but also limiting inequalities. His preferred political system was Distributism (see wiki article).
Although this is not my favorite GKC book, and his style of argumentation is often more spiral than linear, it is often both enlightening and entertaining.
Here’s a couple of quotes:
“The devotee boasted that he would never abandon the faith; and therefore he persecuted for the faith. But the doctor of science actually boasts that he will always abandon a hypothesis; and yet he persecutes for the hypothesis. The Inquisitor violently enforced his creed, because it was unchangeable. The savant enforces it violently because he may change it the next day.”
“Capitalism is a corrupt prison. That is the best that can be said for Capitalism. But it is something to be said for it; for a man is a little freer in that corrupt prison than he would be in a complete prison. As a man can find one jailer more lax than another, so he could find an employer more kind than another; he has at least a choice of tyrants. In the other case he finds the same tyrant at every turn.”
Here’s an interesting article about GKC’s politics:
https://medium.com/s/conservative-roo...
When it came to politics, Chesterton challenged both capitalism and socialism, observing that each produced different types of injustices. He affirmed the importance of property rights and personal freedoms, but also limiting inequalities. His preferred political system was Distributism (see wiki article).
Although this is not my favorite GKC book, and his style of argumentation is often more spiral than linear, it is often both enlightening and entertaining.
Here’s a couple of quotes:
“The devotee boasted that he would never abandon the faith; and therefore he persecuted for the faith. But the doctor of science actually boasts that he will always abandon a hypothesis; and yet he persecutes for the hypothesis. The Inquisitor violently enforced his creed, because it was unchangeable. The savant enforces it violently because he may change it the next day.”
“Capitalism is a corrupt prison. That is the best that can be said for Capitalism. But it is something to be said for it; for a man is a little freer in that corrupt prison than he would be in a complete prison. As a man can find one jailer more lax than another, so he could find an employer more kind than another; he has at least a choice of tyrants. In the other case he finds the same tyrant at every turn.”
Here’s an interesting article about GKC’s politics:
https://medium.com/s/conservative-roo...
July 5, 2020
Not without some merit, but overall a disappointingly muddled work. I was hoping for more of a reasoned and insightful discussion of the evils of eugenics, but what this is.. it's an interesting opinion piece with some creative condemnations of the Social Darwinism of the first quarter of the 20th Century, but a hideous and oddly unconvincing mess overall. This despite some prescient points made in advance of the rise of Nazi ideologies in the 1930s.
Chesterton is obviously a prodigious and artistic writer. There was a lot of this which was delightfully described, some examples in lovely prose which demonstrate the author's ability to weave a little narrative, to create a small example scenario to elicit the reader's particular emotion. Alas there is a lot of this that becomes patronising or falls easily in to the socialist trap of assuming every rich man is undeservingly wealthy and every poor man is subjugated and disenfranchised. It is not as simple as that.
Essentially the problem with the book is that it seeks to refute eugenics (which many would of course now agree is an evil) but that in my opinion it fails to do so by a lack of evidence. Chesterton attacks various contemporaries - getting a bit bitchy at times - but only has imagined and created counter-examples as justification. He may be very right, but from my point of view he does not demonstrate that he is, he merely appeals to emotional and moral arguments (hence, stuff which is a matter of opinion) as opposed to factual reasoning. The use of religious justifications were utterly wasted on me as an atheist.
Consequently this did not add a lot to my knowledge of the complicated interplay between science, sociology, politics and ethics which should inform social policy. As a study in to the views of a number of people a century ago, however, it does make for an interesting read.
Chesterton is obviously a prodigious and artistic writer. There was a lot of this which was delightfully described, some examples in lovely prose which demonstrate the author's ability to weave a little narrative, to create a small example scenario to elicit the reader's particular emotion. Alas there is a lot of this that becomes patronising or falls easily in to the socialist trap of assuming every rich man is undeservingly wealthy and every poor man is subjugated and disenfranchised. It is not as simple as that.
Essentially the problem with the book is that it seeks to refute eugenics (which many would of course now agree is an evil) but that in my opinion it fails to do so by a lack of evidence. Chesterton attacks various contemporaries - getting a bit bitchy at times - but only has imagined and created counter-examples as justification. He may be very right, but from my point of view he does not demonstrate that he is, he merely appeals to emotional and moral arguments (hence, stuff which is a matter of opinion) as opposed to factual reasoning. The use of religious justifications were utterly wasted on me as an atheist.
Consequently this did not add a lot to my knowledge of the complicated interplay between science, sociology, politics and ethics which should inform social policy. As a study in to the views of a number of people a century ago, however, it does make for an interesting read.
November 17, 2019
This was an absolutely brilliant book which discussed both eugenics and the seedy motivations behind it. G.K. Chesterton's insights are absolutely brilliant, and will leave you with your mouth hanging open in numerous places at just how obvious some things are now that he's pointed it out to you with his usual wit and panache. This is the best book that I've read in a while, and I heartily recommend this book to you.
February 19, 2024
This is a public domain available as a free eBook from Project Gutenberg here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25308
"Most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late."
"The American works until he can't play; and then thanks the devil, his master, that he is donkey enough to die in harness."
This is an overt takedown of eugenics views in the early 20th century from that era; however, from the perspective of the 21st century, it is not as strong and decisive a critique as needed because Chesterson makes exceptions for psychiatric disabilities like "mania." Chesterton points out how subjective it is to label someone as "feeble-minded" (terminology of the era) but goes on at length about how this is different from madness. He seems to accept some degree of eugenic thought or institutionalization for people experiencing psychosis. This is the primary weakness of what is otherwise a refreshing criticism of 1920s British eugenics from the perspective of a 1920s British man. Other weaknesses, when read from a contemporary position, are how Chesterton also slips in some small comments that seem to be against vaccination and refer to how controversial it is and seems to disapprove of any type of mandating vaccines.
A final weakness for the 2024 reader might be the uncomfortable terminology referring to any group that is not white. Often, in these uncomfortable moments, the author is skewering eugenicist ideology and sarcastically presenting the eugenicist view. Nonetheless, it is jarring to encounter. The author is not being overtly racist and is using identity terms that were common parlance at the time, but it does serve as a reminder of how eugenicist thought is inextricably linked to white supremacist worldviews that "other" any group not seen as white/European. The author does point this out, saying, "The bondage of the white hero to the black master was regarded as abnormal; the
bondage of the black to the white master as normal" and criticizing eugenics for racializing class.
These faults aside, it's evidence against the idea that all ideas or individuals must be judged against the norms of their time - because at any time, in any place, there are dissenters. Just because eugenics was commonplace in the early 20th century UK doesn't mean everyone was a eugenicist or there were no criticisms of it - this book was published in 1922. Thus, we can judge the eugenicists of the early 20th century by pointing to the proof that people like Chesterson were speaking out against it, from within that time and place.
This book is not only anti-eugenics, but also anti-capitalist, and quite clear how the rich man needs the poor to accept low wages in order for the rich man to keep his riches. This part of the book is bitingly well-written and just as applicable to 2024 as it was to 1922.
For example:
"And sooner or later, in exact proportion to his intelligence, the English plutocrat began to understand not only that the poor were impotent, but that their impotence had been his only power. The truth was not merely that his riches had left them poor; it was that nothing but their poverty could have been strong enough to make him rich. It is this paradox, as we shall see, that creates the curious difference between him and every other kind of robber."
"Prosperity does not favor self-examination" .... true in 1922, and true in 2024!
"Most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late."
"The American works until he can't play; and then thanks the devil, his master, that he is donkey enough to die in harness."
This is an overt takedown of eugenics views in the early 20th century from that era; however, from the perspective of the 21st century, it is not as strong and decisive a critique as needed because Chesterson makes exceptions for psychiatric disabilities like "mania." Chesterton points out how subjective it is to label someone as "feeble-minded" (terminology of the era) but goes on at length about how this is different from madness. He seems to accept some degree of eugenic thought or institutionalization for people experiencing psychosis. This is the primary weakness of what is otherwise a refreshing criticism of 1920s British eugenics from the perspective of a 1920s British man. Other weaknesses, when read from a contemporary position, are how Chesterton also slips in some small comments that seem to be against vaccination and refer to how controversial it is and seems to disapprove of any type of mandating vaccines.
A final weakness for the 2024 reader might be the uncomfortable terminology referring to any group that is not white. Often, in these uncomfortable moments, the author is skewering eugenicist ideology and sarcastically presenting the eugenicist view. Nonetheless, it is jarring to encounter. The author is not being overtly racist and is using identity terms that were common parlance at the time, but it does serve as a reminder of how eugenicist thought is inextricably linked to white supremacist worldviews that "other" any group not seen as white/European. The author does point this out, saying, "The bondage of the white hero to the black master was regarded as abnormal; the
bondage of the black to the white master as normal" and criticizing eugenics for racializing class.
These faults aside, it's evidence against the idea that all ideas or individuals must be judged against the norms of their time - because at any time, in any place, there are dissenters. Just because eugenics was commonplace in the early 20th century UK doesn't mean everyone was a eugenicist or there were no criticisms of it - this book was published in 1922. Thus, we can judge the eugenicists of the early 20th century by pointing to the proof that people like Chesterson were speaking out against it, from within that time and place.
This book is not only anti-eugenics, but also anti-capitalist, and quite clear how the rich man needs the poor to accept low wages in order for the rich man to keep his riches. This part of the book is bitingly well-written and just as applicable to 2024 as it was to 1922.
For example:
"And sooner or later, in exact proportion to his intelligence, the English plutocrat began to understand not only that the poor were impotent, but that their impotence had been his only power. The truth was not merely that his riches had left them poor; it was that nothing but their poverty could have been strong enough to make him rich. It is this paradox, as we shall see, that creates the curious difference between him and every other kind of robber."
"Prosperity does not favor self-examination" .... true in 1922, and true in 2024!
September 6, 2023
Stunning indictment of eugenics and other ways of oppressing everyday people
Based on the title, I expected a book narrowly focused on the lies underpinning eugenics. Instead, Chesterton offers a full throated defense of the working class against efforts of the elite to scientifically manage their lives. While eugenics has thankfully faded from acceptable conversation, parts of this book feel strikingly modern.
Based on the title, I expected a book narrowly focused on the lies underpinning eugenics. Instead, Chesterton offers a full throated defense of the working class against efforts of the elite to scientifically manage their lives. While eugenics has thankfully faded from acceptable conversation, parts of this book feel strikingly modern.
July 23, 2022
Classic Chesterton; some the best stuff you will ever read while also leading the reader through a confusing weave of specificities and names as well as landing on a few anti-capitalist and anti-calvinist soapboxes throughout. It's still worth reading for all the good parts.
July 7, 2022
Started this one the day Roe was overturned (🙌 ❤️). Little did Chesterton know how much worse things would get. I didn't follow all of his arguments (too much listening while I was out running errands and not fully attentive), but what I did catch was mostly characterized by his sharp, clear reasoning. And of course his perfectly turned phrases.
Derek Perkins was an excellent reader as usual.
Derek Perkins was an excellent reader as usual.
April 9, 2011
This book was truly prophetic. George Bernard Shaw said of G.K. Chesterton "he was a man of colossal genius"-- he most certainly was. But Chesterton was beyond intelligent. He was wise.
That is, he had a firm grasp on human nature. He represented the absolute best side of cynicism and while he may have been a cynic, Chesterton was not a pessimist.
His social commentary was priceless, not to mention way ahead of its time. To my knowledge, Chesterton was the one of the only voices at the time to speak out against eugenics; certainly he was the only voice who spoke loudly.
It is simultaneously frightening, amusing, and enlightening how much the world of today is like the world of yesterday. So many of the issues he grapples with here (personal liberty, the state, socialism etc.) -- are the same issues we face today.
Of course, there are no easy answers and this is exactly what society must come to understand. Taking polarized sides and arbitrary stances won’t solve anything in the long run. Rather than bypassing intelligent discourse (which may be uncomfortable at times) in favor of a superficial examination and quick fixes, we should exercise our brains a little more often -- yes, I said 'should'.
Reading this, I could not help but think (and laugh) of South Park and the whole "Rabble, Rabble, Rabble!" of the masses. SO true.
While we have learned much about the humane genome and nature/nurture since then, it's amazing how Chesterton captured the essence of what was essentially to come. He did not deny hereditary or our ability to influence it, but he did deny our ability to control it to the extent eugenics would have had us thought possible.
That is, he had a firm grasp on human nature. He represented the absolute best side of cynicism and while he may have been a cynic, Chesterton was not a pessimist.
His social commentary was priceless, not to mention way ahead of its time. To my knowledge, Chesterton was the one of the only voices at the time to speak out against eugenics; certainly he was the only voice who spoke loudly.
It is simultaneously frightening, amusing, and enlightening how much the world of today is like the world of yesterday. So many of the issues he grapples with here (personal liberty, the state, socialism etc.) -- are the same issues we face today.
Of course, there are no easy answers and this is exactly what society must come to understand. Taking polarized sides and arbitrary stances won’t solve anything in the long run. Rather than bypassing intelligent discourse (which may be uncomfortable at times) in favor of a superficial examination and quick fixes, we should exercise our brains a little more often -- yes, I said 'should'.
Reading this, I could not help but think (and laugh) of South Park and the whole "Rabble, Rabble, Rabble!" of the masses. SO true.
While we have learned much about the humane genome and nature/nurture since then, it's amazing how Chesterton captured the essence of what was essentially to come. He did not deny hereditary or our ability to influence it, but he did deny our ability to control it to the extent eugenics would have had us thought possible.
September 6, 2022
Chesterton's was the lone voice in the wilderness decrying the pseudoscience of "racial hygiene", a.k.a. eugenics, which was touted by some of the most unquestionably greatest minds of the day, including Nicola Tesla, and would end up in works of literature that are somehow still considered classics today (i.e. Of Mice And Men).
Aside from the Holocaust, the profound stupidity of this human breeding program, as it were, gave us such wonders as the Aktion T4 program and similar human sterilization programs and "culling" of the mentally ill in the US. I don't even think most people genuinely understand how much this line of "scientific" thought has influenced the modern world. If anyone ever poisoned the proverbial well, it was whoever thought survival of the fittest should be artificially applied to and forced upon humanity by governmental agencies.
My only gripe here is that at times, Chesterton could have made a better argument. He assumes most people are reasonable, intelligent, and are not confounded by basic common sense, when in fact there is no limit to human stupidity or gullibility. Otherwise, a very accessible work that is, unfortunately, not in the least outdated.
Aside from the Holocaust, the profound stupidity of this human breeding program, as it were, gave us such wonders as the Aktion T4 program and similar human sterilization programs and "culling" of the mentally ill in the US. I don't even think most people genuinely understand how much this line of "scientific" thought has influenced the modern world. If anyone ever poisoned the proverbial well, it was whoever thought survival of the fittest should be artificially applied to and forced upon humanity by governmental agencies.
My only gripe here is that at times, Chesterton could have made a better argument. He assumes most people are reasonable, intelligent, and are not confounded by basic common sense, when in fact there is no limit to human stupidity or gullibility. Otherwise, a very accessible work that is, unfortunately, not in the least outdated.
August 12, 2021
While such an old text would appear outdated since it would be tempting to think that since WWII Eugenics has been dead and buried as an intellectual movement, when Chesterton’s observations about eugenics propaganda are compared to present-day Euthanasia propaganda then Chesterton’s observations really strike home. One of the proposals seriously put forward by Eugenicists in Chesterton’s time was the vivisection of criminals, that is the dissection of living human beings with the objective of perhaps unearthing new medical discoveries. The reason Chesterton’s observations are pertinent today is that both movements, Eugenics and Euthanasia, have deep roots in the materialistic origins myth, that is the Theory of Evolution.
Of course those adopting the Theory of Evolution as their origins myth*, inevitably arrive at a place where the absolute basis for morals is destroyed. Which leaves us giving absolute moral (and political) power to modern or postmodern elites (specifically to the State). In the early 20th century when Chesterton was writing the battle was over shaping human heredity. This naturally lead to the Final Solution, which largely discredited the Eugenics movement (though I think it is naïve to think it is dead). But both the Abortion and Euthanasia movements spring from the same source, that is the will to usurp the God-like power to define life and shape humans either at birth or in their old age. Having rejected the Judeo-Christian worldview which tells us ALL will have to give an account of their lives before the Just Judge, modern or postmodern elites then think it natural to assume the God-like power to define human life, what it means and when it should begin or end. The concept that human’s are made in God’s Image and worthy of respect on that basis means NOTHING to them. Leaving aside political rhetoric, in actual fact we mean no more to them that prisoners in a cage or rats destined for lab experiments...
Here is a sample from Chesterton’s booklet which exposes this same will to usurp the God-like power to define human life
And some of what Chesterton says in this booklet is rather pertinent to the present Covid crisis, particularly to the official government and mainstream media narrative. Those involved in the Origins Debate are quite familiar with the “Follow the Science” meme. In actual fact this meme has been used as a club to intimidate the ill-informed and also to suppress dissent. When you strip away the bogus pretence of “concern” for actual scientific data and methodology, the meme actually only means “Follow the Ideology”. Nothing else...
The following quote from Chesterton’s booklet exposes the deep contempt of human rights (eventually leading to violence and persecution) that accompanies Eugenics which is also at the root of the present government and mainstream media narrative regarding the Covid crisis.
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* I realize some may think I’m just being flippant when I allude to “Theory of Evolution as an origins myth”. I’m not. I’m deadly serious. In my view the Theory of Evolution is solely ideological and has made no real contribution to real science, the kind that adds something useful to life and can be subject to empirical scrutiny. One can get a peek into my view of evolution here:
Myths of Origin and the Theory of Evolution.
But for the full and detailed argument, one must go to my Flight From the Absolute, volume 2.
Of course those adopting the Theory of Evolution as their origins myth*, inevitably arrive at a place where the absolute basis for morals is destroyed. Which leaves us giving absolute moral (and political) power to modern or postmodern elites (specifically to the State). In the early 20th century when Chesterton was writing the battle was over shaping human heredity. This naturally lead to the Final Solution, which largely discredited the Eugenics movement (though I think it is naïve to think it is dead). But both the Abortion and Euthanasia movements spring from the same source, that is the will to usurp the God-like power to define life and shape humans either at birth or in their old age. Having rejected the Judeo-Christian worldview which tells us ALL will have to give an account of their lives before the Just Judge, modern or postmodern elites then think it natural to assume the God-like power to define human life, what it means and when it should begin or end. The concept that human’s are made in God’s Image and worthy of respect on that basis means NOTHING to them. Leaving aside political rhetoric, in actual fact we mean no more to them that prisoners in a cage or rats destined for lab experiments...
Here is a sample from Chesterton’s booklet which exposes this same will to usurp the God-like power to define human life
This is what the honest Eugenists really mean, so far as they mean anything. They mean that the public is to be given up, not as a heathen land for conversion, but simply as a pabulum for experiment. That is the real, rude, barbaric sense behind this Eugenic legislation. The Eugenist doctors are not such fools as they look in the light of any logical inquiry about what they want. They do not know what they want, except that they want your soul and body and mine in order to find out. They are quite seriously, as they themselves might say, the first religion to be experimental instead of doctrinal. All other established Churches have been based on somebody having found the truth. This is the first Church that was ever based on not having found it.
There is in them a perfectly sincere hope and enthusiasm; but it is not for us, but for what they might learn from us, if they could rule us as they can rabbits. They cannot tell us anything about heredity, because they do not know anything about it. But they do quite honestly believe that they would know something about it, when they had married and mismarried us for a few hundred years. They cannot tell us who is fit to wield such authority, for they know that nobody is; but they do quite honestly believe that when that authority has been abused for a very long time, somebody somehow will be evolved who is fit for the job. I am no Puritan, and no one who knows my opinions will consider it a mere criminal charge if I say that they are simply gambling. The reckless gambler has no money in his pockets; he has only the ideas in his head. These gamblers have no ideas in their heads; they have only the money in their pockets. But they think that if they could use the money to buy a big society to experiment on, something like an idea might come to them at last. That is Eugenics.
And some of what Chesterton says in this booklet is rather pertinent to the present Covid crisis, particularly to the official government and mainstream media narrative. Those involved in the Origins Debate are quite familiar with the “Follow the Science” meme. In actual fact this meme has been used as a club to intimidate the ill-informed and also to suppress dissent. When you strip away the bogus pretence of “concern” for actual scientific data and methodology, the meme actually only means “Follow the Ideology”. Nothing else...
The following quote from Chesterton’s booklet exposes the deep contempt of human rights (eventually leading to violence and persecution) that accompanies Eugenics which is also at the root of the present government and mainstream media narrative regarding the Covid crisis.
I am not frightened of the word "persecution" when it is attributed to the churches; nor is it in the least as a term of reproach that I attribute it to the men of science. It is as a term of legal fact. If it means the imposition by the police of a widely disputed theory, incapable of final proof--then our priests are not now persecuting, but our doctors are. The imposition of such dogmas constitutes a State Church--in an older and stronger sense than any that can be applied to any supernatural Church to-day. There are still places where the religious minority is forbidden to assemble or to teach in this way or that; and yet more where it is excluded from this or that public post. But I cannot now recall any place where it is compelled by the criminal law to go through the rite of the official religion. Even the Young Turks did not insist on all Macedonians being circumcised.
Now here we find ourselves confronted with an amazing fact. When, in the past, opinions so arguable have been enforced by State violence, it has been at the instigation of fanatics who held them for fixed and flaming certainties. If truths could not be evaded by their enemies, neither could they be altered even by their friends. But what are the certain truths that the secular arm must now lift the sword to enforce? Why, they are that very mass of bottomless questions and bewildered answers that we have been studying in the last chapters--questions whose only interest is that they are trackless and mysterious; answers whose only glory is that they are tentative and new. The devotee boasted that he would never abandon the faith; and therefore he persecuted for the faith. But the doctor of science actually boasts that he will always abandon a hypothesis; and yet he persecutes for the hypothesis. The Inquisitor violently enforced his creed, because it was unchangeable. The savant enforces it violently because he may change it the next day.
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* I realize some may think I’m just being flippant when I allude to “Theory of Evolution as an origins myth”. I’m not. I’m deadly serious. In my view the Theory of Evolution is solely ideological and has made no real contribution to real science, the kind that adds something useful to life and can be subject to empirical scrutiny. One can get a peek into my view of evolution here:
Myths of Origin and the Theory of Evolution.
But for the full and detailed argument, one must go to my Flight From the Absolute, volume 2.
November 14, 2013
Chesterton was a literary genius. His satirical prose and command of the paradox leads the reader dumbfounded how anyone could accept the tenants that Chesterton argues against in his Eugenics and Other Evils. Don't be fooled by the age of this book; the eugenics movement has notgone away, it has just changed its shape and name. Things like state-run birth control and abortion may have been theory back in the late 19th century, but they currently are our reality.
Chesterton was ahead of his time, writing during the early 20th century, Chesterton would not live to see the horrors that eugenic ideals can lead to; viz., National Socialism in Germany and the morally repugnant programs conducted by Nazi scientists. Elegant and sardonic, Eugenics and Other Evils is one giant argument ad absurdum - to which I agree wholeheartedly and completely with Gilbert.
Brent McCulley (11/13/2013)
Chesterton was ahead of his time, writing during the early 20th century, Chesterton would not live to see the horrors that eugenic ideals can lead to; viz., National Socialism in Germany and the morally repugnant programs conducted by Nazi scientists. Elegant and sardonic, Eugenics and Other Evils is one giant argument ad absurdum - to which I agree wholeheartedly and completely with Gilbert.
Brent McCulley (11/13/2013)
May 17, 2016
A bit lengthy, but compelling none the less. It is terrifying to think that such evil people existed, and perhaps even more terrifying that they still exist today, masquerading their cold-blooded intents under the guise of science and the "betterment" of human society. If you thought that eugenics and ethnic cleansing ended with the nazis, take a close look at the major heads of the green movement. Many are calling for a culling of the human race, and where else would they start but with the sick and disabled. How is it that in a world where we pride ourselves on being so compassionate and tolerant, there can be such a horrific and outright evil way of thought? Interesting, frightening, very important to read and learn the history about.
November 2, 2011
It's amazing how many topics that Chesterton tackled are still with us today. They have different names, but the concepts are still there. I think his main point is the dignity and worth and value of every living soul. No one has the right to trample on the rights of others, even in the name of "helping" them. Some of the allusions are out-dated now, but Chesterton is always biting and bright.
March 6, 2012
This book, like Chesterton's Orthodoxy, is a collection of arguments and speeches given in response to the assertions of leading eugenics supporters in England in the 1920s. Many of his thoughts apply to today's battles over abortion and contraception and the government's role in providing them. Chesterton makes a clear and powerful reasoning for keeping the grasping government's hand out of the individual's most private life.
February 21, 2016
I listened to David Grizzly Smith's excellent audio podcast of this book, available from Podiobooks.com.
I enjoy Chesterton, and I have yet to read anything by him that is less than excellent. This one is scathing and very serious, even though his trademark humor often appears.
He takes aim at some surprising targets. In some cases, his critiques left me stunned because they were so unexpected. Brilliant and still relevant.
I enjoy Chesterton, and I have yet to read anything by him that is less than excellent. This one is scathing and very serious, even though his trademark humor often appears.
He takes aim at some surprising targets. In some cases, his critiques left me stunned because they were so unexpected. Brilliant and still relevant.
January 25, 2017
Chesterton can be frustratingly obtuse and then suddenly brilliantly clear. I wished for more of the latter in this book. He argues against eugenics (not only birth control for the poor or feeble-minded, but also the calculated "breeding" of more favorable human specimens) using the arguments of human dignity and human freedom. The other "evils" of the title are socialism and unbridled capitalism.
November 17, 2017
Might deserve 5 stars just for the admiration Chesterton inspires. His stance against eugenics at that time was a man standing against a rising river. The cultural zeitgeist was flowing towards eugenics and Chesterton bravely pushed back and helped stem the tide.
That said, I give it 3 stars because I found some of the arguments (particularly against capitalism/industrialism etc.) rather porous. A bit slapdash in places, like much of Chesterton’s work. Good, but not the great man’s best.
That said, I give it 3 stars because I found some of the arguments (particularly against capitalism/industrialism etc.) rather porous. A bit slapdash in places, like much of Chesterton’s work. Good, but not the great man’s best.
July 15, 2021
EXCELLENT BOOK. A must read and a permanent book to the Read Again Shelf.
I completely agree with GK. He and I could be siblings taught by the same wise father.
Oh Goodreads where are all my reviews and what happens to them when then fade to the bottom of the page, how do we retrieve our reviews instead of having to write again as I have just done…again.
I completely agree with GK. He and I could be siblings taught by the same wise father.
Oh Goodreads where are all my reviews and what happens to them when then fade to the bottom of the page, how do we retrieve our reviews instead of having to write again as I have just done…again.
July 15, 2012
Chesterton is really quite enjoyable to read.
I often disagree with his premises and outcomes of his thinking, but the thinking itself is something to behold. A brilliant man.
Will read more of his.
I often disagree with his premises and outcomes of his thinking, but the thinking itself is something to behold. A brilliant man.
Will read more of his.
November 13, 2012
Excellent, written 90 years ago, but you would think it was written today- except that Chesterton was a fantastic writer, most modern journalists are not fit to stand in his shadow, and it was a big shadow.
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