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Ed Iverson, "From Darwin to Hitler" (2005)
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Ed Iverson, "From Darwin to Hitler" (2005)
http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/article/20050420/Opinion/104200016
From Darwin to Hitler
Ed Iverson
April 20, 2005
Early last century, Darwinian natural selection produced the pseudoscience of eugenics. As the eugenic ideal was accepted in German culture, the killing of the defenseless, the weak, and the infirm began through abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. In his recent book "From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany," Richard Weikart contends that there is a cause-effect relationship between Darwinism and the general acceptance of these policies by the German people in the decades leading up to World War II.
Professor Weikart contends further that the gradual acceptance of these policies encouraged an expanded application of natural selection theory to the question of race. In this arena, natural selection seemed to suggest that the most advanced nationalities were the strongest. And so it was that warfare that was employed to advance these stronger races (Germanic mostly) mimicked the laws of nature. Influenced by such an application of Darwin, millions of ordinary citizens became convinced that as the super-race, Germany only imitated nature and nature's laws. In this fertile ground, the seeds of Hitler's "cleansing" sprouted and flourished until they produced an intolerable deprecation of human dignity.
Dr. Weikart teaches history at California State University, Stanislaus. He is a recognized authority on Nazi Germany and the Jewish Holocaust and has traveled widely in Europe, researching the papers and records of Nazi Germany. He has won several awards for his scholarship including the coveted Selma V. Forkosch Prize for the best article in the "Journal of the History of Ideas" in 1993. While I tend to generally disregard these trappings of academia, the point is that academia itself cannot discount this guy as some red-state rustic who doesn't like Darwinism because it contradicts the Genesis account of creation.
"From Darwin to Hitler" elucidates the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Weikart demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned Christian ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This thinking had its biggest impact on Germany. Hitler's ethics came from Darwinian principles, not from nihilism as is popularly believed.
Weikart asserts that subsequent to World War I, Darwinian ethics overthrew the Christian moral tradition in Germany. For example, Darwinian thought recasts death as a positive force of nature. Evil can serve the good in the Darwinian moral system because death is the engine of progress. Christianity holds that death is an enemy to be destroyed. Conversely, Darwinism welcomes death; and Nazi Germany employed it as a "final solution" in a pursuit of the eventual triumph of the human race, when only the strongest and the fittest remained.
Margaret Sanger, one of the principle founders of Planned Parenthood and the driving forces behind its policies, derived her inspiration from the same source. She was thoroughly convinced that the Negro race was inferior. She often referred to the Black race as "human weeds." She gathered a like-minded following with the goal of shrinking the Negro population. She was alternately hailed, exiled, and jailed for encouraging and supplying abortion; but her "clinics" were located only in black neighborhoods and slums.
The Terri Shaivo case closes the loop. Human life that is not deemed useful is considered expendable. Like 1938 Germany, evolutionary "fitness" (especially intelligence and health) is the highest arbiter of morality in 21st century America. Now here is the truth: euthanasia and abortion are two sides of the same coin. Both are simply the application of Darwinian ethics.
Ed Iverson
April 20, 2005
Early last century, Darwinian natural selection produced the pseudoscience of eugenics. As the eugenic ideal was accepted in German culture, the killing of the defenseless, the weak, and the infirm began through abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. In his recent book "From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany," Richard Weikart contends that there is a cause-effect relationship between Darwinism and the general acceptance of these policies by the German people in the decades leading up to World War II.
Professor Weikart contends further that the gradual acceptance of these policies encouraged an expanded application of natural selection theory to the question of race. In this arena, natural selection seemed to suggest that the most advanced nationalities were the strongest. And so it was that warfare that was employed to advance these stronger races (Germanic mostly) mimicked the laws of nature. Influenced by such an application of Darwin, millions of ordinary citizens became convinced that as the super-race, Germany only imitated nature and nature's laws. In this fertile ground, the seeds of Hitler's "cleansing" sprouted and flourished until they produced an intolerable deprecation of human dignity.
Dr. Weikart teaches history at California State University, Stanislaus. He is a recognized authority on Nazi Germany and the Jewish Holocaust and has traveled widely in Europe, researching the papers and records of Nazi Germany. He has won several awards for his scholarship including the coveted Selma V. Forkosch Prize for the best article in the "Journal of the History of Ideas" in 1993. While I tend to generally disregard these trappings of academia, the point is that academia itself cannot discount this guy as some red-state rustic who doesn't like Darwinism because it contradicts the Genesis account of creation.
"From Darwin to Hitler" elucidates the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Weikart demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned Christian ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This thinking had its biggest impact on Germany. Hitler's ethics came from Darwinian principles, not from nihilism as is popularly believed.
Weikart asserts that subsequent to World War I, Darwinian ethics overthrew the Christian moral tradition in Germany. For example, Darwinian thought recasts death as a positive force of nature. Evil can serve the good in the Darwinian moral system because death is the engine of progress. Christianity holds that death is an enemy to be destroyed. Conversely, Darwinism welcomes death; and Nazi Germany employed it as a "final solution" in a pursuit of the eventual triumph of the human race, when only the strongest and the fittest remained.
Margaret Sanger, one of the principle founders of Planned Parenthood and the driving forces behind its policies, derived her inspiration from the same source. She was thoroughly convinced that the Negro race was inferior. She often referred to the Black race as "human weeds." She gathered a like-minded following with the goal of shrinking the Negro population. She was alternately hailed, exiled, and jailed for encouraging and supplying abortion; but her "clinics" were located only in black neighborhoods and slums.
The Terri Shaivo case closes the loop. Human life that is not deemed useful is considered expendable. Like 1938 Germany, evolutionary "fitness" (especially intelligence and health) is the highest arbiter of morality in 21st century America. Now here is the truth: euthanasia and abortion are two sides of the same coin. Both are simply the application of Darwinian ethics.
