Definition of Eugenics? (RE: Murray raves again: capitalist patriarchy hardwired!

Nathan Newman nathan.newman at yale.edu
Sun Feb 6 11:01:25 PST 2000



>On Behalf Of Marta Russell
>
> Of course Margarent Sanger, the mother of Planned Parenthood was
> a eugenicist. Recently I learned that Helen Keller supported it
> too. As you can imagine that is a real downer for disability
> activists. Now we have to have some separation
> from her too, a lefty crip.

Is there only one version of eugenics? What was the definition used by these left-oriented eugencists?

Most interesting, what did it mean that someone like Helen Keller was a eugenicist? She obviously did not mean denying resources and help to "undesireables", so did she oppose breeding by specific individuals?

I am curious if there are distinct versions of these thoughts and whether this discussion is talking about an abstraction - the word "eugenics" - where different strains of thought and action are being lumped together.

Don't know myself but when so many different people end up using the same word, I get suspicious that it gets hard to define what you mean - as with "postmodernism" tody.

-- Nathan Newman



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