When Resolute Men Stood Against Wishful Men

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Biography

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born on the 29th of May, 1874, in London, and died on the 14th of June, 1936. He was a journalist in the Daily News, writing on politics, social and moral issues, economics, religion and many other topics that he considered of high importance and concern for humanity at that time. His writing style was characterized by wit and humor, which immediately placed him among the most prolific and successful writers in his, and even, today’s time. He married Frances Blogg in 1901, a woman who was a trustful supporter of his emotional health and intellectual enterprise. In 1922, he converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Chesterton was recognized as a highly skillful debater who would engage in public debates with George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, and Clarence Darrow, coming out usually as a winner.

His contribution to the intellectual awareness of social members of all strata is a significant step towards the achievement of realized liberty of human existence. This is most evident in his works on eugenics, a movement that enjoyed enormous power and publicity at his time. He saw that “scientific officialism and organization in the State … had gone to war with the old culture of Christendom… the ruling classes in England are still proceeding on the assumption that Prussia is a pattern for the whole world… they can offer us nothing but the same stuffy science, the same bullying democracy and the same terrorism by ten-rate professors that had led the German Empire to its recent conspicuous triumph. For that reason, three years after the war with Prussia, I collect and publish these papers” (Chesterton, p. 11). He warned the human species of a rising danger that was too shameless to hide its actions -- soon characterized by human brutalities -- but instead used those actions as an excuse, and most importantly even justification, for imposing its new ‘scientific’ experiment on society.

At the Beginning There Was Darkness

“Eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage” – Francis Galton, 1904 (qtd. in Chesterton, p. 14).

The origins of Eugenics are deeply rooted or subtly covered in the evolutionary theory of Darwin, who tried to immediately go a step further (outside the orbit of his observations and conclusions on birds) to propose that the workings of nature, together with its incomprehensible for the human mind complexities, to naturally design human species could be actually substituted, or even corrected, by people themselves. A predetermined outcome for the next generation became possible, and it only would take some time before the perfect individual was designed by humans alone. The time when human species could fully control -- fully to the extent human minds were naturally designed to think -- their destinies was just at the corner.

Although Darwin was only an observer of birds on an island, a place where nature’s presence was unquestionable and influence unrestricted, he seemed to quickly forget, overpowered by his ambition, the ultimate power and presence of Nature in any form of life on earth and thus decided to disregard nature as the only creator of human life on earth. Natural selection immediately lost its intrinsic meaning -- nature’s superiority alone to form different kinds of species -- and became a tool in the hands of a few who twisted the meaning and propagated it as highly dependable on human decisions and actions. If people are merely a single outcome of the natural selection process, this does not mean that they are and will know, have, and thus control the inputs to this intricate process. However, the real danger for Darwin to extend and conduct his experiment, although later in his life he did refuse to call himself an eugenist, was the protection a democratic country offered its citizens: “But it is quite certain that no existing democratic government would go as far as we Eugenists think right in the direction of limiting the liberty of the subject for the sake of the racial qualities of future generations” – Leonard Darwin, Cambridge University Eugenics Society, 1912 (qtd. in Chesterton, p. 13).

Nature never decided to limit the inborn power, depth, and breadth of actions of the birds Darwin observed, but he, together with other famous eugenists, was too eager to disregard the example of nature and decided that to compel a whole nation to accept the new experiment, which was believed to bring down the Paradise on earth, he needed a new law; moral standards; and different human perceptions of reality. Since the new movement was taking tangible form and quite an extreme deterministic purpose, although vague in perspective, eugenists needed two things for it to be successful and not emerge stillborn: first, a fair tale and, second, listeners to swallow it. However, it turned out that not the people were the problem to come along but the fair tale: it was fairer than fair to believe since it lacked a solid and well-practiced base to be sustained in its form of abstraction and lack of clear perspective. Eugenists were walking on an unknown path; a path of experiment that did not have a clear beginning to have a positive end.

Evolution and Eugenics or Evolution vs. Eugenics

How Ms. Pride, walking in its condescending gait, became a wish; how a wish became a science; and how this science, in order to survive the attack of critics, became a religion.

“We [eugenists] can distinguish between the right to live and the right to become a Parent … We can do our best for the life that is, but can follow Nature and transcend her by mercifully forbidding it to reproduce its defect.” – C.W. Saleeby, 1914 (qtd. in Chesterton, p. 36, emphasis added).

The defect of nature turned out not to be natural, excluding any mentally retarded people, but was man-made. The prosperity of the rich was dependent on the destitute of the poor. Those men who refused to look back to their past and acknowledge their deliberate commitment to labor discrimination and inhuman treatment of other men, instead decided to correct the future in order to forget the past. But the past was alive, taking a new, usually dreadful, form of human appearances and conditions. Suddenly, the prosperous men became afraid of being surrounded by men and women of highly different (abnormal) physical characteristics and mental abilities. They saw a real danger in the new body of citizens that was forming before their eyes: citizens who had been legally forbidden for some time to enjoy the liberties, life, and economic perspectives the rich did. The eugenist rose on the horizon and offered an immediate solution not only to the current social problem but also to the future since he promised to control the defects of nature and thus predict a better outcome for the next generation. Therefore, the pride of the eugenist, or the vanity of his philosophical status, emboldened him to aim high but for an invisible target.

Without having any practical experience or theoretical knowledge, the eugenist suddenly engrossed on the difficult task of changing human nature for better. He, endowed with the rare enthusiasm of a maniac, had enough human bodies to dissect in order to continue as long as possible or necessary to prove what he had boldly claimed on the first place to know by a ‘scientific’ fact. However, his knowledge and intent was as hollow as his claims since he had been scratching on the surface and could not possible reach to the bottom of human nature: “they [eugenists] have studied everything but the question of what they are studying… heredity undoubtedly exists, or there would be no such thing as a family likeness… every simple heredity can never be simple; its complexity must be literally unfathomable, for in that field fight unthinkable millions…these instant inundations of experiences, come together according to a combination that is unlike anything else on earth” (Chesterton, p. 52).

Such a combination could not possibly be the formula offered by the eugenist since he was just embarking on a task impossible to comprehend. Since the impossibility to accomplish the task, as predicted, started to resemble a wish, the eugenist -- this greatest savior of the human race -- had to rely on a new alternative: infuse eugenics with a religious spirit so that it would be difficult to disapprove of or if it would have, as every religion, it would stay in the society for good: “[Eugenics] must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has, indeed, strong claims to become orthodox religious tenet off the future, for eugenics co-operate with the working of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races” Francis Galton, 1904 (qtd. in Chesterton, p. 57). No longer was the eugenist against Nature: he was working with it for the perfection of the human race.

However, eugenics could not be an ordinary religion since its origins were totally different from those of any religious philosophy. Encouraged by his ‘imaginary’ imaginations, the eugenist was lost in vague speculations of the perfect human race although he did not exactly know how to get there: “They do not know what they want, except that they want your soul and body and mine in order to find out. They are quite seriously, as they themselves may say, the first religion to be experimental instead of doctrinal” (Chesterton, p. 61). This powerful combination -- the lack of knowledge and the strength of personal conviction -- propelled the eugenist to go further than his brothers of past religious sects could get: “The old Inquisitors tortured to put their own opinions into somebody. But the new Inquisitors [eugenists] tortured to get their own opinions out of him. They do not know what their own opinions are, until the victim of vivisection [eugenic experiments] tells them… The old prosecutor is trying to teach the citizen, with fire and sword. The new prosecutor is trying to learn from the citizen, with scalpel and germ-injector” (Chesterton, p. 60). As a result, it seemed that it would be a long and difficult task for the eugenist to push his new teachings in the mindset of society. However, there were laws that could help to promote the enterprise; after all, every religious teaching has its own laws and moral norms that uncompromisingly oblige its followers to abide by.

Eugenics as the New Morality or Is It the New Morality!!!

Since the external environment for the eugenist was not responsible for the creation or shaping of the human being -- this was the original and intrinsic meaning of the process of natural selection -- he decided to shift his ‘scientific’ attention exclusively to the human being, and most importantly on marriage. If the next generation could have been designed the eugenist had to legalize his ‘scientific’ experiment to drive his ‘angelic’ scalpel through the rotten society. If it was not possible to recreate human nature, the eugenist did not mind destroying it one way or another as long as his hands were full with some task: “Fifteen States in the U.S.A. enacted sterilization laws before the year 1920” – Dr. Marie Stopes, Birth Control News, Nov. 1992 (qtd. in Chesterton, p. 39). Law, the social power that had to preserve and enhance human existence and experience, became a major weapon in the hands of the eugenist against the race he happened to dislike for one reason or another.

Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman is a constructive experience that leads to personal gratification and happiness of existence; it is a natural given right or gift to be realized. Now, the eugenist decided to exercise control or confine human nature by designing laws: if nature had somehow restricted the evolution of Darwin’s birds, as the eugenist did, Darwin would not have drawn his conclusions. The eugenist tried to somehow impose his wish without knowing who or what allowed him to play with human nature as if it had been a toy: “[eugenists] cannot define who is to control whom; they cannot say by what authority they do those things. They cannot see the exception is different from the rule – even when it is misrule, even when it is an unruly rule” (Chesterton, p. 35). However, the eugenist did not have any qualms in breaking basic human rights but instead he continued indulging in his ‘scientific’ experiments.

Natural Human Rights vs. Man-Made Human Rights

“In the matter of fundamental human rights, nothing can be above Men, except God” (Chesterton, p. 48). Yes, but the eugenist no longer was searching to actually replace God as the very creator of the next child, he was trying to set the conceivable experiences for next child by uniting the proper parents or legally sterilizing the improper ones. Now the task of the eugenist seemed to become more practically feasible. He only needed to identify the inferior race and impose on it legal, social, moral, or any kind of possible man-made frameworks to prevent the race from spreading its natural defects to the superior race and thus dilute it.

Although the inferior race had no common natural trait to be easily distinguished, it was collectively endowed with a common social characteristic – it was poor. The destitute of the socially, economically, and politically disprivileged people became the sole differentiating feature for the eugenist. Poorness is not naturally bestowed quality and thus “the poor are not a race or even a type. It is senseless to talk about breeding them; for they are not a breed” (Chesterton, p. 97). Anyway, destitute was enough for the eugenist to twist his claim through the high and low social strata and propose his solution: “Race cleansing is apparently the only thing that can stop [the spreading disease of destitute]. Therefore, race cleansing must be our first concern” –Lothrop Stoddard, Birth Control News, Dec, 1992 (qtd. in Chesterton, p. 98).

The highly sophisticated, ‘scientific’ experiment of the eugenist to save the human race was nothing more than an inhumane enterprise propagated by the “wealth and the social science” of the rich to order the society in their own fashion; who “sought to make wealth accumulate – and they made men decay (Chesterton, p. 98). For the eugenist, his ‘scientific’ experiment was designed to better the social health of his community and thus promote the survival of the fittest, as Darwin claimed. “If he is to control the health of the community, he must necessarily control all the habits of all the citizens, and among the rest their habits in the matter of sex [consumed in marital relationships]” (Chesterton, p. 103). “Of course sane people always thought the aim of marriage was the procreation of children to the glory of God or according to the plan of Nature; but whether they counted such children as God’s reward for service or Nature’s premium on sanity, they always left the reward to God or the premium to Nature, as a less definable thing” (Chesterton, p. 14-5).

Yet, the eugenist was consciously claiming both the reward for his social initiatives and the premium for designing the social environment where the next generation would be bred. To create “the adventures of one not [yet] born” was the real task of the eugenist since “he who lives not yet, he and he alone is left; and they seek his life to take away” (Chesterton, p. 71, 78). That was the only way for the eugenist to make a fully closed circle of his social enterprise: start with an inhumane idea, and end with an inhumane action.

H.L. Mencken

The Sage of Baltimore

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956)

Mencken was the Son of August Mencken, a cigar factory owner. When he was 3 he moved to a house in Baltimore, where with the exception of 5 years, he would spend the rest of his life. He first became a reporter in 1899 for the Baltimore Morning Herald, until 1906 when he started to write for The Baltimore Sun. From this time on, Mencken was given the title the “Sage of Baltimore. In 1930 he married Sara Haardt, a professor at Goucher College. Unfortunately, just 5 years after they had married, Sara died of meningitis. Mencken would never marry again. In 1948, Mencken had a stroke that made him unable to read, write, or speak. This is where his works ceased. He then died in 1956, January 29. To this day Mencken is known as one of the most influential writers of the 20th Century. He is probably best known for his multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States called The American Language. He is also known for his Prejudices, which came in 7 series.

Eugenics: The Never Ending Maze

Mencken was a strong opponent to the fanciful idea of that time that Eugenics was the solution to all social problems. In his piece On Eugenics, which was published in the Chicago Tribune, he defined eugenists as constantly wandering around a maze of tonalities without actually going anywhere. He writes:

“In none of their books have I ever found a clear definition of the superiority they talk about so copiously. At one time they seem to identify it with high intelligence. At another time with character, i.e., moral stability, and yet another time with mere fame, i.e., luck. Was Napoleon I a superior man, as I am privately inclined to believe, along with many of the Eugenists? Then so was Aaron Burr, if in less measure. Was Paul of Tarsus? Then so was Brigham Young. Were the Gracchi? Then so were Karl Marx and William Jennings Bryan (Mencken, On Eugenics).”

Mencken tried to point out that if a group (Eugenists) felt so strongly about a certain subject, why was it necessary for them to let everyone else know exactly what they are proposing, and what they felt. However, they never did this. Instead, they constantly gave round about answers and left followers and critics in a never-ending maze.

First Rate Men or First Rate phonies?

One of the most important concerns Mencken raised was the issue of Superiority. One of the underlying reasons that eugenists saw eugenics as imperative was because they believed that a large part of future human progress required a large sum of “First Class Men.” Mencken disagreed with the claim. He argues:

Because a hundred policemen, or garbage men, or bootleggers are manifestly better than one, they conclude absurdly that a hundred Beethoven’s would be better than one. But this is not true. The actual value of a genius often lies in his singularity. If there had been a hundred Beethoven’s the music of all of them would be very little known today, and so its civilizing effect would be appreciably less than it is. The number of first-rate men necessary to make a high civilization is really very small. If the United States could produce one Shakespeare or Newton or Bach or Michelangelo of Vesalius a century it would be doing better than any nation has ever done in history. Such culture as we have is due to a group of men so small that all of them alive at one time could be hauled in a single Pullman train. Once I went through Who’s Who in America, hunting for the really first rate men among its 27,000 names—that is, for the men who had really done something unique and difficult, and of value to the human race. I found 200. The rest of the 27,000 were simply respectable blanks (Mencken, On Eugenics).

Mencken's point was clear. He did not believe that over populating our country with first class man would make us better off. Instead, he believed that this form of over-population would diminish individuality, thus having no over-all positive effect. He also believed that there were fewer first rate men than most people believed. Here lied an issue. What exactly made a first class man? What would determine if those persons could reproduce? Since eugenists did not have any direct answers to these questions, Mencken dis not see how this could ever give a positive light to society.

Superior or Not Superior: That is the Question

Mencken was utterly confused about what exactly would make a man superior, or that of a first rate man. Once again he knocks the Eugenists giving a vague definition of what it would mean to be superior. He is also enraged that Eugenists believe that certain social qualities are in the sole possession of the upper class. He states:

But their vagueness about the exact nature of superiority is not the only thing that corrupts the fine fury of the Eugenists. Even more dismaying is their gratuitous assumption that all of the socially useful and laudable qualities (whatever they may be) are the exclusive possession of one class of men, and that the other classes lack them altogether. This is plainly not true. All that may be truthfully said of such qualities is that they appear rather more frequently in one class than in another. But they are rare in all classes, and the difference in the frequency of their occurrence between this class and that one is not very great, and of little genuine importance (Mencken, On Eugenics).

He then continues to make his point by mentioning Fredrich Wihelm Nietzsche, a great economist. He uses him as an example to show that if you are not considered a superior man or a first rate man, that you can still contribute greatly to society.

The case of Friedrich Nietzsche is in point. I suppose that no rational person today, not even an uncured Liberty Loan orator or dollar a year man, would argue seriously that Nietzsche was inferior. On the contrary, his extraordinary gifts are unanimously admitted. But what of his value to the human race? And what of his eugenic fitness? It is not easy to answer these questions. Nietzsche, in fact, preached a gospel that, to most human beings, is unbearable, and it will probably remain unbearable for centuries to come. And Nietzshce himself was a chronic invalid who died insane—the sort of wreck who, had he lived into our time, would have been a customer of chiropractors. Worse, he suffered from a malady of a scandalous nature, and of evil effects upon the sufferer’s offspring. Was it good or bad luck for the world, eugenically speaking, that he was a bachelor (Mencken, On Eugenics)?

The questions in this excerpt from On Eugenics show how hard it would be for a person to know what exactly is Eugenically fit. Who will determine it? What if those who determine it are wrong? One of Mencken's main points is that Eugenists could not answer these questions.

Clarence Seward Darrow

Clarence Seward Darrow (April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938)

Clarence Darrow was born on April 18, 1857 in Ohio to Amirus Darrow, an abolitionist, and Emily Darrow, who was a women’s rights advocate. When he graduated from high school, he decided to attend Allegheny College, followed by University of Michigan Law School. Soon after he graduated from law school, in 178, he was admitted to the Ohio bar. As a lawyer, he is most well known for his participation in 2 cases. One was the Leopold and Loeb trial, where a young man named Bobby Franks was kidnapped and killed by Leopold and Loeb. At the end of the trial the two men were sentenced to life in prison. His second, and most well known trial was the Scopes trial of 1925. This trial started because of a law that forbade the teaching of evolution in school. This trial was known as the monkey trial. In the end Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution, and he had to pay a fine of 100 dollars. He was also known for criticizing eugenics to the fullest. He did so with his most prominent piece The Eugenics Cult.

I, for one, am alarmed at the conceit and sureness of the advocates of this new dream. I shudder at their ruthlessness in meddling with life. I resent their egoistic and stern righteousness. I shrink from their judgment of their fellows.” — Clarence Darrow, “The Eugenics Cult,” The American Mercury, 1926

The Eugenics Cult: A Biological Viewpoint

Unlike Mencken, Darrow focuses mainly on the genetic aspects of the eugenics movement. In his work, “The Eugenics Cult,” he discusses in depth how scientist such as Dr. William McDougall and Mr. Albert Wiggam. Here he describes how the Eugenics movement will take place in the eyes of these men. Wiggam makes it know that sterilization is imperative to drastically improve our nation. Wiggam states, “ We already have enough scientists at hand to bring the world into an earthly paradise! It remains only for all me to apply to it (Darrow, ”The Eugenics Cult”).” Darrow the continues to mention how the Eugenists believe that if proper sterilization methods are abided by, then crime will reduce significantly as well as the amount of mental patients. This is where Darrow shows his first disapproval. He does not believe that any human has the right, or can be trusted to ultimately play God. He writes:

We have neither facts nor theories to give us any evidence based on biology or any other branch of science as to how we could breed intelligence, happiness, or anything else that would improve the race. We have no idea of the meaning of the word “improvement.” We can imagine no human organization we could trust with the job, even if Eugenists [sic] knew what should be done and the proper way to do it. (Clarence Darrow, “The Eugenics Cult”).

Dr. McDougall then adds another aspect of the Eugenics moment: Intermarriage between separate classes should be prohibited. He believes that this will also limit the amount of "non-superior men" being brought into this world. In response Darrow states, " What can be simpler than all this? Nothing, perhaps, except Dr. McDougall's biological innocence (Darrow, "The Eugenics Cult")." Darrow doesn't buy into this. He believes that things such as reading intelligently or the ability to speak well does not just have to do with ones biological make up. You have to be taught how to do these things as well. He best sums up his position on eugenics in the end of this piece, which was published in the 8th volume of "The American Mercury," which coincidently was headed by H.L. Mencken. He writes:

Amongst the schemes for remolding society this is the most senseless and impudent that has ever been put forward by irresponsible fanatics to plague a long-suffering race. (Clarence Darrow, “The American Mercury”).

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