Title: Darwinism and the alleged superiority of some human
gr
NOTE: I had written this post before Steven Sherman decided
"to declare the topic of 'genetic superiority' off topic."
Hence, I trust that it will be posted on WSN, especially since it is
in response to a post by Steven Sherman himself. Let me also add that
I find the remarks "excuse me, is this the world-systems net? is
wsn moderated for subject matter?" by Jozsef Borocz
incomprehensible: I have been subscribing to WSN now for more than a
year, and a huge number of posts that I've seen had absolutely nothing
to do with "world-systems" theory. Why object now to
discussions of biological or genetic superiority, since, as
illustrated below, the resulting supremacist ideologies have very much
shaped world systems in the past, and are doing that even at the
present time?
In his May 10, 2003 post Re: Genetic superiority, reproduced
below, Steven Sherman points out that, "Any claims of
'superiority' raise obvious questions about 'superior in what
way'?
The concept of "biological superiority" was introduced
by supremacist of all kinds soon after the publication of Darwin's
monumental work "The Origin of Species." For example, on p. 235 of James Wilson's "The Earth Shall
Weep: A History of Native America" (Grove Press, 1998) we
find the following statement: "Charles Darwin's 'The Origin of
the Species,' published a decade after the [1850s] Gold Rush [in
California], gave scientific racism a new intellectual authority.
Subtitled 'Or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for
Life,' it seemed to offer a purely biological explanation for
the global 'success' of northern Europeans at the expense of other
peoples. Where the seventeenth-century Puritans believed that God had
chosen them to populate the New World, nineteenth-century Americans
could now feel confident that nature had selected them for the same
purpose. Within only a few years, references of Darwin and the theory
of Evolution were commonplace in writing about Native
Americans."
Although Mendel made his pioneering discoveries between 1856 and
1865, genetics did not exist as a science at the time "The Origin
of Species" was published. (Genetics took off around 1910). Thus, the nineteenth century white Americans did not
have any notion yet of genetics as a science, but quickly adapted
Darwinian ideas to developing "scientific" supremacist
ideologies. The resulting conviction that they were "superior"
to the Native Americans led to unambiguous results: "Although
Darwinism was clearly not directly responsible for the
near-extermination of Californian Indians, it sprang from, and
contributed to, an intellectual climate in which genocide was seen as
natural and unavoidable." (Ibid., p. 236)
But Steven Sherman is right: that
nineteenth-century social Darwinism is by now
discredited.
However, there is a new Darwinism
right now on the rise, which reflects a "cynicism deeper than
Freudian cynicism [that] may have once been hard to imagine. ...
Already, various avant-garde academics ... are viewing human
communication as 'discourses of power.' Many people believe what new
Darwinism underscores: that in human affairs, all (or at least much)
is artifice, a self-serving manipulation of image." (Robert
Wright, "The Moral Animal," Vintage Books, 1994, p.
325)
It is to such "discourses of
power" that modern supremacists subscribe. Of course, the
motivation for the application to human affairs of the old social
Darwinism and of the "new Darwinism" based on genetics is
the same: after militarily powerful nations or social groups subjugate
weaker ones, they justify their acts by invoking the idea of
"superiority" as a "scientific fact." That
provides their own populations with the assurance that even if what
they are doing was not "predestined by God," it is at least
"natural" and "right." Hence we have, on one hand,
Cantor's and Patai's assurances of the "genetic intellectual
superiority" of the Jews that I described in my WSN post of May
4, 2003, and, on the other hand, the "the many
vocal and virulent racist Jews" whom Ken Richard had
encountered during his recent visit to Tel Aviv, and whom he describes
in his WSN post "Re: Zionism, supremacist doctrines and PNAC"
of the same date.
Since Steven Sherman quotes the passage in which I refer to the
genuinely "superior humans" in my book "Dawn of the New
Man," let me add that in this novel an advanced society develops
humans who can survive without protective gear on other planets, who
have outstanding intellectual abilities, etc., so that the
"superiority" is very specific, and has nothing to do with
dominance. In fact, my intention was to examine how extremely advanced
human species might fit into an already advanced society that
enjoys true freedom and democracy, since genuine superiority
will give rise to some amount of social friction even if it is not
overtly asserted and used to acquire special privileges.
However, that is a work of fiction, and I would hate to see
geneticists develop new strains of humans at the present infantile
stage in the development of the human species. Unfortunately, that
will very likely take place, and seeing how things are
"progressing" nowadays, probably the first priority will be
given to military purposes: to develop humans who are more efficient
killers, so that they can better serve with the US occupying forces
across the globe, and supplement on the ground all the "smart
bombs" dropped from the air.
Eduard Prugovecki
_________________________________________
On May 10, 2003 Steven Sherman wrote:
In a message dated 5/10/2003 10:52:31 AM
Eastern Standard Time, prugovecki@laguna.com.mx writes:
> It is not that I shy away from the
possibility of genetic superiority of certain groups. In fact, in my
novel "Dawn of the New Man: A Futuristic Novel of Social Change,"
I dwell on the subject of how an enlightened future society, which
enjoys true freedom and democracy, deals with the technology of
genetic engineering leading to various superior human species. But the
arguments that the Jews, or the Aryans, or whatever, are
"genetically superior" at the present time simply does
not
> represent well-established
scientific fact.
Any claims of 'superiority' raise obvious
questions about 'superior in what way'? Generosity?
Endurance? Strength? Mathematical cognition? Musical
cognition? Tolerance? Humor? Physical attractiveness?
etc. Are all (or any) of these measurable on a single scale of
'superiority'?
When Darwin was first writing, and for another hundred years or so,
there was a belief that evolution produced superior species as time
went on. I have not read enough Darwin to know whether or not to
blame him for this. But this view is now completely discredited
scientifically. Species are more differentiated, from each other
and in terms of their internal functioning, but each part has become
simpler. It is more endless mutation than ascension.
Humans regarded by some as 'inferior' often have capacities that are
superior to others in important ways. The blind, for example,
can navigate in the dark much better than those with eyesight.
And the reverse is true. While many at the top levels of the
contemporary economy would undoubtedly score well on intelligence
tests produced in our society, it has been my experience that they can
be stupefyingly narrow-minded and utterly unable to incorporate any
facts that may lead to self-criticism.
I find any view that suggests that those who have fallen victims to
some individual or group with bigger guns or muscles are 'inferior' to
be particularly repugnant and incompatible with anything I would
recognize as 'left' values.
Steven Sherman