"What would an apology do for me?
You don't know what my kids were going to be.
You don't know what kids God was going to give me."
NIAL RAMIREZ (sterilized at 18 in N. Carolina eugenics program in 1960)
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You don't know what my kids were going to be.
True. Who does? They might have been ..Einsteins but they might just as well have been ..Mansons.
The moral absolutism of some (actually, many) catholics and WASPs led to the problems in the first place (ie, the traditionalists who insist contraceptives are the work of the devil)
the catholic argument is rooted in the tradition of natural law
i don't sense you have the wherewithall to counter that
inarguable system
the issue is not about contraceptives it's about someone's presumptions about managing society
it is third reich light
with a smile
welcome the fascists
jh
Im opposed to reductionists, usually jh (and to Darwin applied politically)--but lets not forget most of the leading nazis were catholics. So most of 'em set aside the ora pro nobis and picked up the Origin of Species..
In so far that "Natural Law" is Aristotle or Aquinas--well, there are plenty of arguments. The scholastic idea of "substance" however...poetic is itself dubious, if not falsified like 16th cent. or so (not that dogmatists are likely to accept them.."inarguable"). Better contraceptives than ....slums with millions (ie, Sao Paulo,etc)
most of the nazis were protestants
read michael burleigh
sacred causes
most of the nazis were protestants
read michael burleigh
sacred causes
infantry, perhaps. not officers. why I wrote "most of the leading nazis were catholics."
In the US OW Holmes made some decisions that led to some sterilization and eugenics. Prodidog, wuddn't he. Prodidog, prodidog, yr headed to hell and Mary, Jeesuss and the Pope be ringing the bell. somethin like that. Irish RC school rant IIRC
Hmm. It seems to me that there were enough Catholic and Protestant Nazis that there's not much point in arguing which system was more likely to produce the little bastards. And moreover that this argument is entirely extraneous to the question at hand.
I suspect that most of the members of the North Carolina Eugenics Board were Baptists, which is to say, biblically literal and literate pro-life social conservatives, but of the peculiarly southern variety which will never forgive African-Americans for being the descendants of those enslaved by their ancestors.
FWIW, I'll note that there's a world of difference between a personal choice to use contraception, and the choice to impose permanent contraception on someone else, yet they are linked by the second great commandment "and love your neighbor as yourself."
This is really about genocide, effected not through the killing of the living, but by cutting off of procreation of those who you want to eliminate. Yes, I understand that there were folks from other ethnic groups who were sterilized, but I also understand the role that race played in deciding who got the knife.
Dr. Stu solves it again!
Eugenics went down all over the US before the rise of the nazis. Wasn't just the south--Michigan had a eugenics program (as did CA). Most who supported it were germans/nordics (Keynes as well pro-eugenics). Pinche aleman.
J,
I didn't know about the Michigan Eugenics program. It was gone by the time my family moved there in '69, and wasn't something that I ever heard discussed. It's sobering reading, to be sure. There's plenty of racism up north, too. Certainly, the urban centers of the North were unprepared for the Great Migration, and they handled it badly.
The question for us today is this: Can we do better?
There is reason for both optimism and doubt. I am personally inclined to optimism, but I understand that it's going to take a lot of work. Oddly enough, I'm convinced that the churches will have a role in making it work, as they did in the 60's during the civil rights movement.
I wonder what happened in '63 that brought an end to so many Eugenics programs? The usual argument is that there was revulsion at the claim made by some Nazis that their movement found a theoretical basis in the work of American eugenicists, but if so, 18 years is a very long time for revulsion to do its work.
Most of the WASP churchies I deal with would probably support eugenics .
Keynes' eugenicist leanings seem a bit odd--the liberal-centrist's fave econo-guru and he consistently supported eugenics--as did Churchill at times
J,
Most of the WASP churchies I deal with would probably support eugenics
You might be right, but this an easy accusation to make, and all but impossible to refute without detailed information about your local circumstances. It seems likely to me that this says more about what you believe Protestant Churches believe than it says about what Protestant Churches believe.
From my perspective, there's tremendous variation congregation to congregation, so much as to swamp interdenominational differences, and they're not inconsiderable. Part of my experience growing up in the Detroit area in the early 70's was the racial tension there, exacerbated by the then recent riots. A very large fraction of the anti-racist messages I got came through the church, and it was only through the church that I had any direct involvement in civil rights. And for what it's worth, before I lived in the Detroit area, I lived in the Philadelphia area, and again, a very large fraction of the anti-racist messages I got came through the church. YMMV, of course, but two data points separated by 800 miles are not without value.
You'd think that the Catholic Church would have been at the forefront of dealing with race, given the experience of nativism in the later half of the 1800's, and the extreme prejudice against the Irish and Italians. But it seems to me that they were "in the pack," and this is predictable at the level that part of what makes racism viable is the existence of a group lower down on the latter than you are. In effect, the visible presence of blacks in the northern cities made the Irish and Italians more acceptable, and they weren't about to trade in their new-found social standing in order to provide some badly needed social criticism. I say this not to blame them, after all, the necessary social criticism could have been offered by anyone.
Keynes' eugenicist leanings seem a bit odd--the liberal-centrist's fave econo-guru and he consistently supported eugenics--as did Churchill at times
Not so surprising to me. Part of the liberal worldview is the belief that we can improve the world. Eugenics rests on this belief, and so the appeal is understandable, clear up to the point when actual eugenic decisions need to be made. At that point, actual wisdom is required, and a foresight that is not granted to man. The most we can hope for in practice is enough self knowledge to admit that we lack the requisite knowledge. But such humility isn't common, especially among theoreticians :-/.
There's an old saying: in theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. People who are drawn to theory, not in itself a bad thing, are prone to make this sort of mistake.
Aquinas onMendacity.
Note STA upholds Aug. nearly to the letter, with a bit of Aristotle added.
Scuzi Stu--addressing jh's point on natural law (and his contra-Aug. views). Yet..IMO the points on Mendacity are somewhat logical, and pertinent to about any communication --even that of blogs. The early Christian church wanted truth functionality of a sort, even in everyday speech (then.."thou shalt not bear false witness" also suggests as much).
thanks stu for weighing in so logically
it is senseless to apply blame to the churches on anything the third reich did or taught
culpability abounds even jews were in on it
my interest in the quote
why i was attracted to it in the first place
was to highlight the presumptions of the humanist pragmatist emphasis on the value of reason
in this regard well why not
forcibly neuter women
whether they know it or not
do it on the sly
save the world
my moral compass does not allow for the practical designs of modern science as you know
it often appears to me that
scientists write their own moral codes and they use the justifications of the likes of steven pinker and peter singer or dawkins or hitchens and the french humanists
and the modern american social agenda to fortify their efforts
and then of course the moral tradition of christianity is suspect at best
sterilization is a egregious violation
nothing is better because artificial contraception has happened
no life is improved
no one can prove the work of dr john rock (a catholic) has been beneficial
i reject it all
the world looks a horrid place to me
i'm facing the real commercial overkill of christmas out of season
the sickness of the disturbing interpretation of a season we should be expecting not smearing all over the cultural map with glitz glitter saccharine and goo
i'm int he world for awhile
caring for my parents
i long to be back in the cloister
it's ugly out here
j thanks for your comments and the aug reference maybe ill get to it
i only have an hour a day
on the computer
that is more than enough for anyone
these are dastardly contraptions
the tower of babble
for the 21st century schizoid man
robert fripp et al
yo
phuq santa
that's my mantra these days
jh
Santa's an Oppressor, es verdad.
Most WASP-protestants conceive of...Being as something like the Santa-idea , IMHO. Santa, or JHVH. An identity of sorts.
That said, I find the typical RC celebrations slightly discordant or something--e.g., the manger scenes, common to many cat. neighborhoods. But they are nothing like the baptist houses, with lights, santa and his deer, trees, frostys, candy canes, etc
Actually Die Tannenbaum has a certain pagan simplicity to it (certainly from..El Norte). Put a gaulish head on the top.
catholics have always been very proud of their pagan roots
phuq santa
He's not my kind -- not that I'm implying that he's anyone else's.
But that said, you guys aren't the only one's down on the fat man in the red suit:
Santa Tracking App
of course i mean it in a purely derogatorial sense
protestants never imagined the sort of iconoclasm i am launching
i'm on the make
watch out wall street
jh
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