Problematic Application of Eugenic Theory to Social Practice - Essay Example

Unfortunate Consequences: The Problematic Application of Eugenic Theory to Social Practice The Oxford English dictionary defines eugenics as “pertaining or adapted to the production of fine offspring, esp. in the human race.” Though the tern was coined in the nineteenth century, the ideas involved with it date much further back: “Twenty-three hundred years ago the political dialogues of Plato outlined a policy of controlling marriage selection and parentage for the general good of society” (2). As with many misguided ideas, eugenics attempts to appear altruistic in nature: Its proponents argued that humans, like other valued species, ought to reproduce according to scientific principles to generate the best possible genetic pool…Eugenicists regarded their movement as a rational and humanitarian effort to improve the human condition (Barrett 497). However, the eugenics movement led to the policies adopted by Hitler and the Nazis in their genocide of the Jewish people. Germany is not the only country to have a history of eugenics in official policy; the United States sterilized many people with mental handicaps in the 1920’s under the ideal of improving the human race. The genocide of World War II and the sterilization of mentally handicapped people are examples of extreme and direct eugenic policies. There are, however, less direct ways in which eugenics is implemented, such as through social classes. People of an upper class refusing to associate and mix with people of a lower class keeps these social classes genetically separate. Such an idea can be found in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. H.G. Wells, however, attempts to show the consequences of implementing such a eugenics policy in his novel The Time Machine. In viewing these works together, we can see how Wells was responding to the sort of ideas found in Wilde’s work and the negative consequences of such policies. The promotion of the separation between social classes can be seen most clearly by the title character Dorian Gray and Lord Henry Wotton. In specific, we can see how their attitudes towards Dorian’s involvement with the actress Sybil Vane and Dorian’s admittance to the murder of Basil Hallward most clearly states these ideas. These attitudes, though not directly advocating eugenics, clearly would lead to the fragmented society portrayed in Wells. Dorian falls in love with the actress Sybil Vane mostly because he finds her to be incredibly talented. In eugenics, it is believed that talent is genetically linked (Field 3), so since he found her so talented she was acceptable as a mate, even though was not from the upper class. The problem arises when she falls in love with Dorian; she could act before because she had never been in love, but now that she was in love, she could no longer portray it on stage. After a terrible performance, Dorian ends the relationship: “He had dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because she had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him” (106). Since she was no longer a great artist in his eyes, she could no longer be a suitable mate for him, and for this reason he ended the relationship with her, no matter how cruel. The other problem with Sybil Vane was that she was lower class. When Dorian first tells Lord Henry about her, he begins by saying “I will tell you, Henry, but you mustn’t be unsympathetic about it” (64). At this point, Dorian is just starting to adopt Lord Henry’s ideas, so he personally was still open to the idea of marrying Sybil Vane even though she was lower class. Lord Henry does not make a big deal out of Dorian’s interest in Sybil because he believes that Dorian is just experimenting and not serious about a marriage with the girl. However, when Lord Henry learns of Dorian’s engagement, he makes his feelings about the matter known: “But think of Dorian’s birth, and position, and wealth. It would be absurd for him to marry so much beneath him” (88). To Lord Henry, it does not even matter that she is a talented artist. She is unacceptable to him for Dorian simply because she is lower class, and he cannot find any redeeming qualities about people that are lower class. After the death of Sybil Vane, Lord Henry further expresses his objection to the girl based on her lower class: “I say nothing about the social mistake, which, of course, I would not have allowed—but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an absolute failure” (114). Even as Dorian finds himself upset over the news of the death of Sybil, who after ending the relationship with her had decided that he would marry her, Lord Henry still must expresses his negative opinion over their relationship merely because she is lower class. This is an extreme attitude, and also very unsympathetic, as Lord Henry can only express his disapproval over the young girl who just tragically had killed herself the night before. His main concern was that he didn’t want Dorian to be involved with a scandal, and the death of Sybil was no concern to him because she was lower class. This is an extreme attitude of separation and segregation towards the lower class held by Lord Henry, and after this event, Dorian finds himself more and more influenced by Lord Henry until he holds the same views. The attitudes towards the lower class did not merely extend to the idea that they were not proper to marry. Lord Henry expresses the idea that the upper class was not capable of performing the kinds of base acts that lower class people did. When Dorian tells Lord Henry that he feels like he could tell him anything, even if he had committed a murder, Lord Henry responds by saying that “People like you—the willful sunbeams of life—don’t commit crimes, Dorian” (68). This shows that Lord Henry’s prejudice of the lower class was so extreme that he felt that they were the only people that could commit criminal acts, and thus solely responsible for crime. This attitude shows that Lord Henry thought of the upper class and lower class as such different kinds of people to the extent that one was simply incapable of committing crimes while the other was solely responsible. He already seems to think in terms of a different race of people that function differently. When Dorian tells Lord Henry that he had killed Basil Hayward later in the book, he further explains just how different he thinks the social classes are. In expressing his belief that Dorian couldn’t have committed the murder, he state that “Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. I don’t blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations” (244-5). Lord Henry thinks that the upper and lower class are so different hat their minds function in completely different ways. He thinks that lower class people wouldn’t be capable of enjoying art the way that he does, and so because they can’t enjoy art because they function differently, they must turn to committing crime in order to procure “extraordinary sensations.” This is an extreme view of the differences between upper and lower classes, and this is the kind of view that H.G. Wells thought would lead to such a negative type of future that he envisioned in his novel The Time Machine. The Time Traveler finds a world that at first he finds to be a utopia because it does not seem to have social classes, but when he finds that there is another race of creatures that arose because there were different social classes, he discovers the dangers of such class systems. The first race of creatures that the Time Traveler comes across when he goes into the future are the Eloi. When he meets these creatures, he notes that “There was no sign of struggle, neither social nor economical struggle” (37). He finds their society to be a sort of utopia, because there did not seem to be any sort of struggle for any of the Eloi to have their needs met. He originally thought that this was probably because of some sort of communist state that arose, and these creatures were the result of what would happen if communism was the dominant system of government. They seemed to have a perfect society. For every problem that Wells saw in his society, a solution had been reached by the Eloi: In the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the balance of animals and vegetable life to suit our human needs…Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during my stay…Social triumphs, too, had been effected. I saw mankind in splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged in no toil (37). Even though everything seemed to be in perfect order, he noticed smaller problems before the real problem presented itself to the Time Traveler. He found that there was a problem with the Eloi, though. They seemed “a very beautiful and graceful creature, but indescribably frail” (26). Without the social or economic struggle, these creatures ended up being incredibly frail and child-like, raising the question as to how these creatures would adapt and survive if some sort of emergency or crisis would arise. This is because, as the Time Traveler states, “Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness” (36). As the Time Traveler states, “Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness. Even in our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to survival, are a constant source of failure” (38). Without any sort of struggle for survival, the Time Traveler sees that weakness sets in, and with this weakness mankind would become vulnerable. However, the Time Traveler was mistaken about communism, a classless state, being the foundations of the society he was seeing. If it had been, the assumptions that he had made would probably have been correct. What originally appeared to be a perfect society that was the result of a classless society eventually turned out to be a rather dystopic nightmare for the traveler. This change occurs when he meets the underground dwelling Morlocks. He devices a new theory upon seeing the Morlocks: Man had not remained one species, but had differentiated into two distinct animals: that my graceful children of the Upper-world were not the sole descendants of our generation, but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal thing, which had flashed before me, was also heir to all the ages (56). The Morlocks, living underground with all of their machinery, were the result of the class system, the traveler felt. The two different species were the result of “the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key to the whole position” (56). In the future that Wells envisioned, the differences between the upper class and the lower class would become so extreme that they would eventually spilt into two different species. As the laborers were used to working in conditions such as factories and caves and other underground areas, this tendency would increase until they became completely subterranean dwelling creatures, while the upper class, having always taken the most desirable positions for themselves, would naturally remain above ground. As the traveler states, “So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labor” (59). The darkened world of the Morlocks stands in sharp contrast to the world of the Eloi. While the Eloi had no work or toil, that was all the Morlocks did. They lived in a world filled with machinery: “The thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything save that little disc above was profoundly dark” (64). Furthermore, the place seemed even more nightmarish as the underground dwelling was “very stuffy and oppressive, and the faint halitus of freshly shed blood was in the air” (65). He discovers that the Morlocks are carnivorous, but does not figure out the source of the meat until later. The world that the Morlocks live is was just an extreme version of the world that the working class laborers lived in during Wells’ time, showing the consequences of two classes living in such different conditions. While the Eloi grew feeble, it was not so much because they had eradicated any sort of social or economic struggle through a classless state, but it was because they had relied upon the Morlocks to do all of the work for them until they couldn’t really do anything for themselves. The class society of capitalism became so extreme until the classes became different species, but the attitudes remained, as the traveler states of the Eloi “whose disgust of the Morlocks I now began to appreciate” (61). However, the traveler soon starts asking questions about the relationship between the two races: “Why, too, if the Eloi were the masters, could they not restore the machine to me” (60). This statement shows the assumption that the upper class would naturally remain the superior race in the regards to the specie that came from the lower class. The true nature of the relationship between the Eloi and the Morlocks explains why this is, and fully explains the dangers of a class society such as is the result of capitalism. In this world in which the classes became different species, Lord Henry’s assumption that the lower class were the only ones capable of committing crimes came to be true. Because the Eloi lived in a society without toil, they became lazy, weak creatures, while the Morlocks continued to be a strong race because they had to work in order to support the upper class. The result was that the Morlocks grew to be in a position of power of the Eloi, and they became the masters of the Eloi, in a sense keeping them around as cattle. As Robert Philmus states, the “idyllic world of the Eloi is quite literally undermined by the machine dominated world of the Morlocks” (532). The meat that the traveler was uncertain of the origins of turned out to be the Eloi. The Morlocks, living in the darkness, hunted the Eloi on nights when there was as little moonlight as possible, due to their development underground. This, in a sense, is the true danger as Wells saw it; by continuing down a path where the advances of man were mostly in favor of the upper class, they would eventually become weak to the extent because they had no need for strength, and they would eventually be dominated and taken advantage of by the lower class descendants because they would continue to strong because they would continue to struggle in their support of the upper class. While it may be impossible to predict the future eight hundred thousand years into the future, it is obvious that Wells was responding to the current thinking of his day in regards to eugenics, evolution, and social Darwinism. Wells also seemed to be advocating socialism, as the world that he first experienced was socialist in nature and a utopia, while a split, class based system such as capitalism obviously was the what caused the nightmarish, dystopic society that the traveler came to the conclusion of once he realized the existence of the subterranean dwelling Morlocks. In order to avoid this sort of future, it seems as though Wells is saying that the split between upper class and lower class must be erased. The ideas of Lord Henry, who believed that lower class people were of no worth and committed crime to feel some sort of fulfillment, are obviously being attacked as being sort-sighted and prejudiced to the extent that it would become dangerous to the upper class. In order to avoid this future, the two classes must mix and mingle, so that there would be only one class, and in that case there wouldn’t be a split of man into two different species. While this result is quite obvious as fanciful as the idea of a time machine itself, it is difficult to underplay the dangers of the forced servitude of the lower class and the laziness of the upper class. The world of eugenics, though it might try to present itself as an attempt to better mankind, can obviously have very serious consequences. Works Cited Barrett, Deborah; Kurzman, Charles, “Globalizing Social Movement Theory: The Case of Eugenics.” Theory and Society, Vol. 33, No. 5 (Oct., 2004), pp. 487-527 Field, James A., “The Progress of Eugenics.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Nov., 1911), pp. 1-67 Philmus, Robert M., "The Time Machine: Or, The Fourth Dimension as Prophecy,” PMLA, Vol. 84, No. 3 (May, 1969), pp. 530-535 Wells, H.G., The Time Machine. Random House, New York, 2003. Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Penguin Books, New York, 1995. Read More