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

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun Feb 6 15:22:42 PST 2000



>From Marta to Nathan:
>> 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.
>
>There is a distinct difference -- there was a "right" and "left" side to the
>eugenics movement. The right's association was in alignment with social
>Darwinism. The left's with progress and state planning.

I think that Nathan is asking a question regarding more ambiguous cases -- e.g., J. S. Mill, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emma Goldman, Olive Schreiner, etc. -- which Murray's logic has us lump together with the social Darwinist & state planning varieties of eugenics. Goldman was an anarchist, and she never had any state power (nor did she aspire to such), and one can't accuse her of trying to use state power to force women to have more, or fewer, or "better" babies.

Nevertheless, many socialists -- feminists included -- did often think in what Rosalind Petchesky calls neo-Malthusian terms, arguing that women desire "fewer and better children," not "a race of sickly, feeble, decrepit, wretched human beings" (Goldman, qtd. in Petchesky, _Abortion and Woman's Choice_). For more, see my 6 Feb 2000 post that includes a long excerpt from Petchesky. Also, see Mark Pittenger, _American Socialists and Evolutionary Thought, 1870-1920_.

In any case, I reiterate the importance of arguing for women's reproductive rights by emphasizing women's own wellbeing (physical & mental) and need for self-determination, parting company with neo-Malthusians in no uncertain terms. Leftists should avoid population discourse & the organicist notion of society.

Yoshie



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list