Atrocities Associated with the Eugenics Movement
Among the fears of many environmentalists is that of overpopulation. Acutely aware of the finite resources that the planet possesses and the limitations of renewable resources, there are concerns that the planet may soon reach its maximum caring capacity. Since the First Great Transition ten thousand years ago, the planet has experienced an astounding increase in population. Generations later, the planet is beginning to feel the effects of continual population expansion. Over the years, numerous methods have been proposed or adopted to ensure that the Earth will not exhaust its resources. One of the most frightening adapted solutions was the eugenics movement.
As small mobile groups of hunter-gatherers adopted a sedentary lifestyle, they mastered both agriculture and animal domestication. These small settled groups quickly evolved into cities and towns that encompassed the entire globe. Today the estimated population of the world is over 6.2 million people.1 As the population has grown, it has had several deleterious effects on the Earth. These include climate changes, the spread of diseases, declining food production, deforestation, and environment pollution (particularly air pollution). As people have become more conscious of these harmful effects, they have begun to devise strategies to combat this problem. Among the suggested responses include a switch to renewable energy, a call for zero population growth, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices.
The concept of eugenics was not initially intended to prevent overcrowding, however, it would later be used as a form of population control. Eugenics is the idea of improving society by breeding fitter people. Francis Galton was the first person to originate this term and was a major proponent of the concept during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The practice of eugenics was originally performed through the use of selective breeding. Eugenics was a progressive idea, driven by social perceptions. In fact, "many of its most strident advocates were socialist, who saw eugenics as enlightened state planning of reproduction."2 Fearing the degradation of society, the elite desired to prevent further social decay of the world by eliminating individuals who were considered unfit physically, mentally, or socially.
In order to accomplish its goal of producing healthier people, eugenics embraced two goals. First, it attempted to improve certain heritable qualities with the human species through selective breeding. Second, it prevented other "undesirable" qualities from recurring by either restricting reproduction or through direct removal from the gene pool.
The Punishment Imperative, a book based on the transition from a time when punishment was thought to be necessarily harsh to a time where reform in the prion system is needed, explains the reasons why the grand social experiment of severe punishment did not work. The authors of the book, Todd R. Clear and Natasha A. Frost, strongly argue that the previous mindset of harsh punishment has been replaced due to political shifts, firsthand evidence, and spending issues within the government. Clear and Frost successfully assert their argument throughout the book using quantitative and qualitative information spanning from government policies to the reintegration of previous convicts into society.
The American Eugenics Movement was led by Charles Davenport and was a social agenda to breed out undesirable traits with an aim of racial purification. Eugenics was a used to breed out the worst and weakest to improve the genetic composition of the human race, and advocated for selective breeding to achieve this. The science of eugenics rested on simple mendelian genetics, which was a mistake because they were assuming complex behaviors could be reduced to simple mendelian genes. After Nazi Germany adopted the ideas behind the American eugenics movement to promote the Aryan race, the eugenics movement was completely discredited.
The term eugenics was coined in the late 19th century. Its goal was to apply the breeding practices and techniques used in plants and animals to human reproduction. Francis Galton stated in his Essays in Eugenics that he wished to influence "the useful classes" in society to put more of their DNA in the gene pool. The goal was to collect records of families who were successful by virtue of having three or more adult male children who have gain superior positions to their peers. His view on eugenics can best be summarized by the following passage:
As the years dragged on in the new nation the roles of men and women became more distinct and further apart for one another. Women were not allowed to go anywhere in public without an escort, they could not hold a position in office let allow vote, and they could only learn the basics of education (reading, writing, and arithmetic). In law the children belonged to the husband and so did the wife’s property and money. The only job women could think about having was being a ‘governess’ which would give other women education.
Parkinson, Edward J. The Turn of the Screw A History of Its Critical Interpretations 1898 1979. 6 April 2006
The eugenics movement started in the early 1900s and was adopted by doctors and the general public during the 1920s. The movement aimed to create a better society through the monitoring of genetic traits through selective heredity. Over time, eugenics took on two different views. Supporters of positive eugenics believed in promoting childbearing by a class who was “genetically superior.” On the contrary, proponents of negative eugenics tried to monitor society’s flaws through the sterilization of the “inferior.”
The idea of eugenics was first introduced by Sir Francis Galton, who believed that the breeding of two wealthy and successful members of society would produce a child superior to that of two members of the lower class. This assumption was based on the idea that genes for success or particular excellence were present in our DNA, which is passed from parent to child. Despite the blatant lack of research, two men, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Jon Alfred Mjoen, played to the white supremacists’ desires and claimed that white genes were inherently superior to other races, and with this base formed the first eugenics society. The American Eugenics Movement attempted to unethically obliterate the rising tide of lower classes by immorally mandating organized sterilization and race based experimentation.
The article Police Integrity: Rankings of Scenarios on the Klockars Scale by “Management Cops,” conveys that the different scenarios for each definition and the nature of police work make this corruption difficult to specifically define (Vito 153). Since it is so challenging to correctly define, the three broad ca...
Police departments must execute their duties in such a manner that protects the conditions of a democratic society and addresses the security needs of all individuals and groups. The execution of these duties must also show the community that they serve that they are good stewards of the positions they have been afforded the opportunity to hold and those who hold these positions must be free from corruption. The term ‘police corruption’ has been used to describe many activities: bribery; violence and brutality; fabrication and destruction of evidence; racism; and, favoritism or nepotism.
Adolf Hitler was the Nazi dictator known for the death toll of six million Jews in Germany. Hitler believed he could create the master race by the use of eugenics. Eugenics can be described as the improvement of hereditary traits by the reproduction of more desired people’s traits. Before Hitler could be brought down, he had managed to produce 42,000 pure Aryan children with blond hair and blue eyes. However, Hitler’s means of producing these children proved to be ruthless and atrocious. Hitler’s use of eugenics and hatred of the Jews progressed throughout his dictatorship from eugenics and breeding programs to euthanasia and from euthanasia to deportation and finally, one of the largest mass murders known in history- - the Holocaust, during World War II.
It is a known fact that the world population is increasing without bound; however, there is a debate if this increase is a good thing or if it will prove catastrophic. The article “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garrett Hardin discusses how the ever-increasing world population will exhaust the world of its natural resources, and eliminate human’s capability for survival. On the other side of the argument is Julian L. Simon who wrote “More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment.” This article proposes the theory that with an increase in population, humans’s quality of life is amplified. One particular issue that they both mention and have drastically different views on is the future of agriculture and human’s ability to sustain it.
One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...
Human population growth is becoming a huge issue in our world today. The population is increasing rapidly. The reason that it is becoming a concern is because it has affected the economic, environmental, and social aspects of our world. In the film Frontline: Heat, we can see how there might not be a future for our planet unless we are able to reduce the emissions and make our world a safe place. Not only for the present but also for future generations so that they are able to live long and healthy lives.
Environmentalism can head in a negative direction, which may result in population control and even anti-immigrant policies. Can the developing effort of ‘population integrity’ protect our world while recognizing birth morality? My stance is that we must include all possible solutions to controlling population, such as family planning and governmental involvement. In addition, discover solutions to use renewable resources and impede exhausting nonrenewable resources, as well as ways to tackle overconsumption to support our corrupt environment. Though several people see large, rapidly growing populations in developing regions as the primary culprit in environmental decline, we need to focus on the costly environmental outcomes of overconsumption among the gradually increasing populations of the developed nations.
The reduction of the Earth's resources has been closely linked to the rise in human population. For many thousands of years people lived in relative harmony with their surroundings. Population sizes were small, and life-supporting tools were simple. Most of the energy needed for work was provided by the worker and animals. Since about 1650, however, the human population has increased dramatically. The problems of overcrowding multiply as an ever-increasing number of people are added to the world's population each year.