Eugenics In The Modern Age
Eugenics is the practice of using Social Darwinism to guide human evolution towards more socially desirable traits through state policy. As you can see from the propaganda poster, it draws expertise from many disciplines. There is no way eugenics is unbiased or apolitical. What people find desirable in another human-being varies wildly. So a very small pool of elite academics, experts, pundits, politicians, and affluent individuals would influence the direction evolution would take in a given population. And it would not be evolution in the actual sense. It would be more like asking professional animal-breeders with no scruples to breed the perfect race of humans.
Eugenics was popular in the 20th Century. The US was a big purveyor of eugenics and carried out forced sterilizations on minorities and anyone else that was deemed unfit. Forced sterilization against Native Americans never officially ended until the ‘90s! It was practiced in the US way before the Nazis in Germany. In fact, complicit Germans gave the US as their inspiration for many of their barbarous programs and ideology.
What does this have to do with the 21st century? Well….
The comments had some echoing similar attitudes 20th Century eugenicists held towards the disabled and a-typical neurology. But plenty of others called out these attitudes for what they are. Some even mentioned the movie “GATTACA” as a reference. The world “GATTACA” envisioned was one where gene-editing fetuses proliferated among those who could afford it. This created an underclass of “genetically inferior” humans. Institutions and businesses were heavily regulated to permit only the best quality of human stock. But one man tricked the system and assumed a “superior” human’s identity to fulfill his dream of space travel.
The core of the human experience is that we recognize a person as a human-being before we attach any other label to that person. That a person is their own representative fully aware and with their own desires, goals, emotions, and capacity for empathy. A person has agency and should be allowed to give consent for a treatment which could change them forever.
Too many try to argue that certain groups are fundamentally broken, less than a complete person. And so what these groups desire or need could be divined from people not even qualified to give an opinion. I see too much of this sort of sentiment from folks with good intentions. Let “The Discourse” continue.
Undesirables are seen primarily as a burden. People who take this tact erroneously believe they have the authority to speak for the rest of us. They are relatively easy to spot. They often preach how authoritarian or tyrannical it would be if they had to show even a shred of respect for people who did not have the good sense to not be born with the classification, “developmental disorder.” Understandably, it is much easier to deal with a powerless minority than undertake the hard work of changing the public’s mind. To them, it is simple, lazy math.
I cannot recall how many times I have heard Evangelical conservatives and neo-cons whine and bellow about the “tyranny of the minority,” unable to give bellicose opinions or bray a liturgy of imprecatory prayers to stem the tide of the “gay menace” without also receiving a modicum of flak for it. Whoa be to Ever-faithful! Thy democracy be dashed if the majority ever bend a knee out of solidarity to any minority starving for succor!
Many of them take the marketer’s approach and present this as a “choice,” that “giving people choices is good.” Lots of things in our society is presented as a “choice.” Work is presented as a “choice,” but survival is not. One is often constrained by job availability, education, logistics, what family one is born into and other variables which are not choices. Plus, if one doesn’t work for money, then malnutrition, starvation, and death most certainly follow. Before we start with the “free market” talk, we should really examine what guides people’s choices. When I first learned I was transgender, I prayed to the almighty to lift this “curse” off of me. Was that really what I wanted? No, but it was what I thought I needed to survive my parents and society at large. However, I would have taken a miracle cure in my infancy if I thought it would unshackle the burdens placed on my shoulders by a society looking for “the gay gene.”
So, yeah. There will be those on the autistic spectrum antsy for “the cure,” hoping to become “normal” in the eyes of friends, family, and complete strangers. There will also be those who have no idea they are the true source of misery cheering them on to “get fixed.” Given a life of constant shame and ridicule or a chance to live a life as advertised on commercials pushing the “happy pill,” who wouldn’t want to “get fixed?”
Speaking of anti-depressants, it turns out they do not work.
I should know. Zoloft did nothing for me except exacerbate the problem. I felt better off the drug.
There was a mad rush in the ’90s to early ’00s to prescribe as many “happy pills” to people as possible for ordinary reactions to the vexations of life. Plenty of pressure was applied by family, peers and colleagues to see psychiatrists and ask for these wonder drugs, because they lacked the empathy, confidence, and/or competence to help another suffering human-being. As a result, multiple people committed suicide from taking these drugs. Prozac was an infamous case.
As it turns out, the actual cause for depression is not only biological. Depression is a societal problem, not just an individual’s problem. It is a case of mistaking the effects with the cause. How much of this is true in other cases, I wonder? There is no easy, magic cure for depression; there is no easy, magic cure for autism.
We should never underestimate the power of labeling others. The “Monster Study” is a testament to that.
Our perceptions of “normal,” “proper,” and “healthy” do not come from us. They are value judgments passed down from our parent’s culture and imposed on us through societal and state pressure. Fully indoctrinated, we in turn go out into the world to do the same, until we don’t or can’t.
Queer folk until recently never had a say in decisions regarding their own classification. Experts from all over weighed in on queer folk for decades as being “ill,” “disordered,” “diseased,” “not for a proper society,” and they were all predominantly heterosexual, white men making these claims. Times have changed and with that change came new meaning and understanding of what it meant to be human.
There should also be a discussion among the public about the nature of what genes do and how gene-editing can have unexpected consequences. For instance, how do we know copies of genes identified with “autism” and “schizophrenia” in mice only account for those traits and would it map the same way in humans? What criteria were even used to determine that the lab mice possessed a human disorder? Remember, there was the “gay gene” and now the “autism & schizophrenia genes.”
What do I personally think about this technology? I believe it shows great promise. The potential for misuse is already there as I have hopefully, clearly demonstrated. Great strides must be made to improve how human-beings relate to one another. We must first de-stigmatize “mental illness” and neuro-divergence. Remember to look upon each other with compassion and empathy. Scientists and psychologists should allow the people they are studying to weigh in on their analyses. People with autism should also study themselves, and the experts should give their endorsement and aid.
