The psychology of racism

[LeBrok]

Well then you are offended by reality, because most 20-th century and later eugenism has been associated with things like: fascism, nazism, anti-semitism, war against the weak, anti-immigration, racism, aryanism, and all that crazy stuff.

Mostly the crazy ones became famous. Eugenics is in all of us to some degree. Don't you want your kids to be the smartest, healthiest and good looking? We all do.

Who are we to decide who has the good genes and who should procreate ?!

For that extremely difficult dilemma, this problem will be left for parental discretion. Although with medical advances in the future, which will give parents abilities to make "designer babies", their got to be regulations and guidelines in this matter set by the state.

 

[FBS]

The smart, the looks and the health have had their evolution without direct interference of Eugenists for centuries, why interfere with mother nature? Where are the Spartans now? Throwing their "lesser" human beings did not help their way of life to survive.

Human experiments and interference have created problems over and over. What we need is learning to adapt more successfully to the environment and society and not create some closely controlled breed. Would that be boring! Everybody healthy, everybody good looking. Imagine the irony, everybody will look for someone who is the other way round - not perfectly good looking because it will make them.. well... unique. Uniformity is boring and stagnating.

 

[MtDNA]

The smart, the looks and the health have had their evolution without direct interference of Eugenists for centuries, why interfere with mother nature? Where are the Spartans now? Throwing their "lesser" human beings did not help their way of life to survive.

Human experiments and interference have created problems over and over. What we need is learning to adapt more successfully to the environment and society and not create some closely controlled breed. Would that be boring! Everybody healthy, everybody good looking. Imagine the irony, everybody will look for someone who is the other way round - not perfectly good looking because it will make them.. well... unique. Uniformity is boring and stagnating.

In the past, those that were of lesser intelligence and ability didn't have it great. In fact, they would bury themselves six feet under by drowning, eating poison mushrooms, getting diseases, etc. They usually woudn't live to have children. But now, they are given support to survive. This means that they can live to reproduction age.

And also, Eugenics was performed in the past. There was a taboo against marrying people who can barely support themselves, nonetheless, a family. Nowadays, with the media's glamorization of "love", naiive girls marry disabled men that say "I love you, I need you". This does not make any evolutionary sense, and it causes those girls to become pregnant by men that shouldn't have ever procreated by natural laws. This has caused a sudden decrease in the universal quality of the human genome.

 

[hope]

There was a taboo against marrying people who can barely support themselves, nonetheless, a family. Nowadays, with the media's glamorization of "love", naiive girls marry disabled men that say "I love you, I need you". This does not make any evolutionary sense, and it causes those girls to become pregnant by men that shouldn't have ever procreated by natural laws. This has caused a sudden decrease in the universal quality of the human genome.

So are you saying disabled people should not be allowed to have children, do you say they should forcibly be sterilised? Do you say poor people should likewise not be allowed to procreate? Where do you draw the line? Should we consider making a table with disabilities and ranking them, who or what disability would make the list? What about the disabled person who becomes pregnant, should the state usher them off for a forced termination? I never heard such nonsense.
As for the naive young women, give them more credit. I think you will find many women who are equally adapt at finding themselves a wealthy husband..take a look in the tabloids.
And if a disabled person finds they are in love with an able bodied person who in turn is in love with them, that is their choice..we still, thank God, live for the most in countries that allow such.

 

[Aberdeen]

In the past, those that were of lesser intelligence and ability didn't have it great. In fact, they would bury themselves six feet under by drowning, eating poison mushrooms, getting diseases, etc. They usually woudn't live to have children. But now, they are given support to survive. This means that they can live to reproduction age.

And also, Eugenics was performed in the past. There was a taboo against marrying people who can barely support themselves, nonetheless, a family. Nowadays, with the media's glamorization of "love", naiive girls marry disabled men that say "I love you, I need you". This does not make any evolutionary sense, and it causes those girls to become pregnant by men that shouldn't have ever procreated by natural laws. This has caused a sudden decrease in the universal quality of the human genome.

But eugenics has nothing to do with racism, fascism or making war on whatever group is currently unpopular? Really? I do hope you realize that one hundred years ago you would have been refused admission to Canada because eugenicists would have considered you to be a member of an "inferior race". Eugenics has almost always been manipulated to suit political agendas.

 

[Angela]

Yes, we all would wish our children to be intelligent, and healthy, and beautiful, and that is more likely to be the outcome if we marry people with those traits and whose families exhibit those traits.

I think it's also true that people who even a few generations ago would not have survived or been allowed to reproduce do so now, and that this might have deleterious consequences for society as a whole. (Of course, marrying one's offspring to diseased or otherwise genetically unattractive people has often been done when there was a financial or social benefit to it, and those marriages had consequences too. Close cousin intermarriage has also been practiced by certain groups in certain eras and we know the deleterious results of that. )

However, that's a far cry from letting any entity. or any other person, for that matter, make that decision for other individuals. As Aberdeen stated, eugenics has almost always been manipulated to suit political agendasor nefarious ideologies of one sort or another. I don't trust any group to make those kinds of decisions. Perhaps we all need to read Brave New World again?

I even wonder about the long term effects of people choosing to alter the genetic make-up of their own offspring through new techniques. It sometimes seems to me that it's the very diversity of the human genome and the constant random permutations that has allowed for our survival. Who knows when a supposedly deleterious gene might come in handy? It's happened before. That's not to mention that, as someone else stated, it would become a very boring world. Moreover, would these things mean anything anymore? What would beauty become, for instance? What would it mean, if there was no ugliness?

Ed. Just another thought. Physical weakness is often the enemy of human progress. How many eminent scientists, or artists of one sort or another, were lost to us not only before they could reproduce and pass on their talents, but before they could put them to the use of all mankind? I have Keats on my mind lately, and he died at 26 of tuberculosis. Susceptibility to TB definitely was genetic...it wasn't just about exposure. Everyone would have been exposed. How many geniuses and their otherwise valuable genes did we lose?

 

[MtDNA]

But eugenics has nothing to do with racism, fascism or making war on whatever group is currently unpopular? Really? I do hope you realize that one hundred years ago you would have been refused admission to Canada because eugenicists would have considered you to be a member of an "inferior race". Eugenics has almost always been manipulated to suit political agendas.

Eugenists do not believe in "inferior races". There are Africans that can't use an abacus, and there are African mathematicians. Similarly, there are Caucasians that can't read, and there are Caucasians that are poetry enthusiasts. Within each race, there are abled people, and less-abled people. The goal is to increase the ratio of abled : disabled within the population. There are many ways to go about that.

Plus, one hundred years ago, Canada would've admitted me. By the way, the immigration back then had nothing to do with Eugenics. They just wanted to bring in anyone that can cultivate their land, and increase the population of their country. Mostly, the poorest people from Europe, that had it going rough, would come.
If anything, my family wouldn't even want to come back then. A hundred years ago, their dynasty was intact. As princes and princesses, they had no need to immigrate to a faraway place. Plus, I do not know where "considering Persians an inferior race" came up from. Maybe, in very bigoted, recently published text you read, they might've mentioned that, but back then, a hundred years ago, Persians interested people. They were compelled by the Aryan migrations, and didn't hate Persians and Iranic people.


This is getting slightly offtopic. Let's discuss how racism affects population composition instead.

 

[Angela]

As for the psychology of "racism", first you have to define it. If we are to define it as fear, or perhaps even hatred, of a sort, of certain "peoples" because they are perceived as alien to ones's own "people", then it may be to some extent a "natural" although not very attractive human trait. If it is defined as the application of political, economic, and social power to marginalize a group of people different from oneself in order to take or keep more than one's own share of resources, then it's a different although perhaps related phenomenon.

 

[Aberdeen]

..............

Plus, I do not know where "considering Persians an inferior race" came up from. Maybe, in very bigoted, recently published text you read, they might've mentioned that, but back then, a hundred years ago, Persians interested people. They were compelled by the Aryan migrations, and didn't hate Persians and Iranic people.


This is getting slightly offtopic. Let's discuss how racism affects population composition instead.

If you think Persians would have been admired or welcomed in this country one hundred years ago, you have absolutely no idea about the racist attitudes of the Orange Lodge types who ran this country back then. As I said before, any discussion of eugenics has often been guided more by political agendas than by science. And no, it's not off topic. The members of the Orange Lodges were usually enthusiastic eugenicists.

 

[MtDNA]

If you think Persians would have been admired or welcomed in this country one hundred years ago, you have absolutely no idea about the racist attitudes of the Orange Lodge types who ran this country back then. As I said before, any discussion of eugenics has often been guided more by political agendas than by science. And no, it's not off topic. The members of the Orange Lodges were usually enthusiastic eugenicists.

The original point was that racism is against Eugenics.
With racism, you are degrading your genome. On the other hand, Eugenics strives to improve the genome.

Imagine there is a young lady that is not that attractive. All of the abled men within her ethnicity are taken. The only marriable people of her ethnic group are disabled. However, there are abled men of different ethnicities in that community.
In situations in which there is widespread racism, the lady would choose to marry a disabled man, than one from the out-group. Her children will be of a "pure" race, but what's the point when they can barely speak, and drool themselves to sleep (exageration).
It is natural to have preferences for your own race, but when the human genome is at risk, that's when it crosses the border, into the danger-zone.

 

[Tchek]

Let's agree on words definition here. Racism is a nebulous concept. It has diverse meanings and it's politically instrumentalized, too.

Eugenics has different meaning as well. There is passive eugenics and active eugenics. Obviously, state planned eugenism (like Nazism) is an ugly concept; but when you are attracted to beautiful, smart, healthy individuals you are applying your own eugenism.

 

[kamani]

There is a very easy way to measure racism. Give a person some authority and look at how fairly does he treat someone of a different race. From what I have seen, once given authority, all races have some racist individuals. Some of my white friends have reported that it is very rare for an East-Asian boss to hire a white employee, even when they're qualified. In non-violent western society, I don't see anything more racist than that.