On Dec 8, 2007, at 8:53 AM, B. wrote:
> I'm over-posted, but the "useless feeder" thing is an
> area of research I started earlier in the Summer (I
> also caught, tragically, the news about Stockhausen's
> death), and while I can't provide an exact
> translation, this is the dark history behind the term:
>
> In 1920, in Germany, Karl Binding, a "penal law
> specialist" (according to G. Agamben) and Alfred
> Hoche, a professor of medicine, produced the genuinely
> creepy document _Authorization for the Annihilation
> of Life Unworthy of Being Lived_. It made quite an
> impression on policymakers at the time.
>
> (James M. Glass appropriated this as the title for his
> book _Life Unworthy of Life_, about how the
> Bindig-Hoche document helped shape Nazi 'cleansing'
> policies.)
>
> In the German _Authorization for the Annihilation_
> document is a chilling quote: "Are there human lives
> that have so lost the quality of legal good that their
> very existence no longer has any value, either for the
> person leading such a life, or for society?" The
> document goes to complain about "the energy [with
> which we] attempt to keep in existence lives that are
> no longer worthy of being lived" and groans about "the
> enormous care for existences that not only are devoid
> of value [wertlosen], but even ought to be valued
> negatively." (Die Freigabe, pp. 27-29) There is then
> complaining about the mentally ill, who certainly
> won't refuse food if you give it to 'em, but, what's
> the point even giving it to them since they aren't
> contributing anything? I'm guessing these are the
> useless feeders. I don't know of Dr. Bindig was
> required to take a Hippocratic Oath.
>
> I'm getting this all from Agamben's _Homo Sacer_, pp.
> 136-139, btw. Simply reading those 4 pages would
> pretty much explain it. It's near the end, in the
> chapter titled "Life That Does Not Deserve to Live."
>
> -B.
>
>
>
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> "I just read in his Wikipedia bio that his mother,
> who'd suffered a psychotic breakdown, was killed by
> the Nazis as a "useless eater." Anyone know the
> original German for this appalling term?"
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