Quality, Quantity, Morality: Eugenics in Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley - Term Paper Example

Quality, Quantity, Morality: Eugenics in "Brave New World Revisited" by Aldous Huxley 2008 Thesis ment In Brave New World Revisited (firstpublished 1958), a non-fiction by Aldous Huxley, one of the key topics discussed is eugenics, that is social Darwinism or the interfering into the genetic composition of human life, through which quality and quantity of mankind can be controlled. Although the subject of eugenics came into much criticism, particularly when it acquired racist connotation in Nazi Germany, there has been a renewed interest in social biology that aims to deny the process of natural order. Introduction The term eugenics refers to the social philosophy that supports intervention into the genetic composition of manking in order to improve the hereditary qualities (Osborn). In its extreme, racist form, eugenics intended to obliterate all human beings considered "unfit," saving only those who matched to a Nordic label. The eugenics theory hailed forced sterilization and isolation laws, in addition to marriage controls. In America, eugenics practitioners eventually forcefully sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, compulsorily isolated thousands in "colonies," and harassed countless numbers. Before World War II, nearly half of forced sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state contributes for a major percentage of all such surgeries (Black). In the novel Brave New World, Huxley had indicted against modern science and eugenics. In the second chapter of "Brave New World Revisited", however, Huxley seems disappointed by eugenics being discarded, saying, "In the Brave New World of my fantasy, eugenics and dysgenics were practiced systematically. In this second half of the twentieth century we do nothing systematic about our breeding". Does that mean that Huxley now regrets what he said before, that, social eugenics controlling population systematically would have benefited humanity in the long run Would Huxley now prefer biologically better ova, fertilized by biologically better sperm, to produce better species of people aided by the best possible pre-birth care to be lastly decanted Probably to answer such criticism, Huxley soon says, in the haphazard and looseness of the natural order and the biological interference that is aimed at reducing diseases and so on, we not only over-populate our earth but we also confirm that those who do not receive good care and treatments become the greater numbers - people having biologically poorer attributes. This, according to Huxley, means that an almost unknowing repetition of the Bokanovsky Process as depicted in Brave New World where biologically substandard ova, fertilized by biologically poorer sperm, were put through and dealt before birth with alcohol and other protein-destroying toxics, to make ("decant") the creatures finally nearly subhuman. Thus, for Huxley, eugenics is a proposed as a form of pseudoscience that is focused on "improving" the human race. In this paper, I will discuss Huxley's views on eugenics, the origins of the theory as well as the current views on the same. Development of the study of eugenics Eugenics was proposed as a means to selective breeding and genetic engineering in order to make human beings fit to survive in the world of the fittest, or in what is known as social Darwinism. The definition of eugenics is itself a much controversial subject. While some scholars think altering the gene pool is what is eugenics, some argue even attempting to alter some behavioral traits is also eugenics. Modern day reprogenetics, preemptive abortions and designer babies or infanticide in some primitive societies may also termed as eugenics. Eugenics may be positive - by increasing the fertility rate of the stronger genetic qualities - or negative - by lowering the fertility rate of the weaker genetic qualities. Perhaps this was why abortion was illegal for the racially superior women in Nazi Germany. In the modern times, eugenics is practiced by genetic screening, segregation, forced abortions and sterilization programs or in the extreme case through genocide. The stream study, based on the theory of origin by Charles Darwin, became popular in the early 20th century, particularly in the United Kingdom, where it found supporters in George Bernard Shaw, H. G Wells, Emile Zola, among others (Gordon, 2002). Early eugenics was considered with racial purity and maintaining the hereditary qualities. According to Galton, the founder of eugenics, human civilization that protects and nurtures the weaker sections of the society in effect acts against the natural order, which favors the strong. As a result, the society regresses to mediocrity. Eugenics was proposed as a means to counter this. Galton said, "a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations". The Second World War took this attitude of heredity and eugenics to the extreme. What was most discredited about eugenics was the attempt to define the good and bad of the gene pool, thereby resulting in scientific racism. Germany then integrated the modern sentiments of Social Darwinism into the philosophical premises of Nazism. Eugenics as an endorsed policy in Germany dates back to 1905, the Nazis merely performing with greater enthusiasm what had been performed right from the outset (history and evolution of eugenics, fathersforlife.org). Eugenics was the justification for the genocide committed by the Nazis. Positive eugenics was also practiced by encouraging Aryan women giving birth to more children. This even included illegitimate births through "racially pure" women. Some scholars, however, have argued that the Nazis did not believe that the Jews were an inferior race but that eugenics was practiced in order to maintain the power balance in favor the Christians although they considered the Jews a highly intelligent race. Since the end of the World War II, the stream of eugenics got discredited over the years as being immoral, antihuman and illiberal (Kaye, 1987). Although biologists continued to research on genetic engineering, liberal social scientists found in this the motivations of a capitalist society, that tried to evade costly welfare programs aimed at poverty and crime while having to tackle racism and social frustration, through the means of eugenics (Gould, 1981). Self-direction of human genetics aims to solve such problems by attacking it from the root. Much of the modern studies of social biology is considered with the treating hereditary diseases and defects. The aim of eugenics in this sense has nothing to do with racism, the association with which has discredited eugenics. On the other hand, rectifying genetic problems may give disabled persons better lives. Eugenics may also be practiced not by direct genetic intervention but through selective marriages. For example, it is considered that a deaf man should not marry a deaf woman, since this would increase the chance of giving birth to a deaf child. Similarly, diseases like mental and bipolar disorders are considered to be hereditary and eugenics is proposed to control this. Eugenics in "Brave New World" The novel's subject matter "is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals," Huxley said in the Foreword he wrote in 1946, that is, 14 years after he first published the book. He did not center on sciences like nuclear physics, though he knew that the generation of nuclear energy (and weapons) was likely to occur. He was more concerned about threats appearing clearer at that time- the possible abuse of biology, physiology, and psychology to attain identity and strength. Paradoxically, it becomes evident near the end of the novel that the World State's total control over its citizens obliterates the very scientific growth that earned it to have such control. Although Huxley does not use the expression genetic engineering but while explaining his new world, says that here set numbers of humans are produced (not growing within their mothers' wombs but in bottles) for particular qualities to match society's needs, to like the work he is compelled to do. Biological conditioning comprises adding chemicals or rolling the bottles for making the embryos fitting the levels of force, brains, and skill needed for. After they are "decanted" from the bottles, people are mentally conditioned, mainly by hypnopaedia or sleep-teaching when at every point the society programs its citizens. Unlike George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, with its terrible vision of a atrocious dictatorial state, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World puts forward a different and smoother form of tyranny of endless spending maintaining the wheels of production spinning, of formally imposed promiscuity to get rid off sexual dissatisfaction, of a destined caste system ranging from a highly smart administrative class to a subgroup of senseless serfs trained to love their tedious work, and of soma, a drug granting immediate ecstasy with no side effects. In Brave New World, babies are no more born, they're grown in hatcheries, their bottles advancing on assembly lines, in different types and batches in line with the needs of "the hive", and nourished on "external secretion" rather than "milk". The word "mother", so scrupulously respected by the Victorians has become an appalling vulgarity; and blanket sex, once a shocking obscenity for the Victorians, is now compulsory. Because sex and breeding have been unconnected and women no more give birth, sex has become a leisure activity. Victorian till-death-do-us-part devotion to sex has been substituted by "everyone belongs to everyone else". Some women are called "freemartins" -- utterly nice girls, though a little hairy. The others carry out "Malthusian drill" , a form of birth control taking "pregnancy surrogate" hormone treatments if they feel meditative , and wear pleasant little faux-leather fashionista cartridge belts jam-packed with contraceptives. If they slips on their Malthusian exercise, there's always the pretty pink-glass Abortion Centre (Atwood, 2007). In effect, Huxley portrays a world, very much into the future where a eugenically conserved class system keeps up an inert society grading its members from Alpha to Epsilon, and under nourishing the embryo in the machines to make certain that Epsilons, for example, are underdeveloped and moronic, suitable for the tedious tasks making their lot. Training through tapes played to dormitories of children at night makes sure that people are glad with their rank, the ecstatic drug soma driving out the repulsive feeling. Eugenics in Brave New World Revisited In the second chapter of "Brave New World Revisited", Huxley takes the stance not of a racist or a stereotype eugenicist but a prophet who would like to apply the theory for the advancement of humanity not in the narrow material sense of the term but in an all-inclusive sense. He says that under the existing conditions, no advance in medical science would benefit humanity as it will tend to be counteracted by a parallel advance in the life expectancy rate of people "cursed" by some genetic lack. Despite the invention new therapeutic drugs and better treatment, the physical health of the general population will not progress, and may even get worse. Together with a waning of average health, a decline in average intelligence may follow. But Aldous Huxley was undeniably a man of dichotomies, who found life on the earth to be precious in itself and that life is unthinkable without contrast and variety and who was also drawn to the philosophical basis of eugenics as he discarded the democratic theory that all men are equal (Murray,2003). In Brave New World Revisited, Huxley wants to blend his conflicts - the improvement of the collective with total reverence to he individual, may be a some what bizarre idea apparently, but the depth and intensity of his arguments make us believe in his such efforts. Huxley did not promote the kind of eugenics advocated by the Nazis but rather condemned it strictly. He was very much up against a society that sets up a new system pf caste where some people would be considered as born privileged. He was against the so-called democratic institutions fostering equality as he says in the second chapter of Brave New World Revisited, 'In an underdeveloped and over-populated country, where four-fifths of the people get less than two thousand calories a day and one-fifth enjoys an adequate diet, can democratic institutions arise spontaneously Or if they should be imposed from outside or from above, can they possibly survive' Conclusion One of the ideas mooted in The Brave New World Revisited, eugenics, is a highly controversial topic. It not only attempts to control the quality and quantity of the human races but also the morality of undertaking such policies. According to Huxley, several policies may be adopted to improve the quality and quantity of life but the means of achieving these ends may often end up questioning the moral parameters. For example, by controlling the spread of malaria, the quality of life may be increased but this would lead to over-population, thus leading to other problems. Thus, although Huxley had criticized genetic intervention in his novel, Brave New World, twenty years on, he seems to be in favor of eugenics, as was the trend of the times. However, eugenics, which is based on the heredity theory, was discredited to a large extent because of its lethal use by the Nazis to justify genocide. In the modern times, however, there is a renewed interest in eugenics that may be used to improve the quality of human life. Works Cited Osborn, Frederick, "Development of a Eugenic Philosophy", American Sociological Review, Vol 2 No 3, June 1937, pp 389-397 This article was the first to define the term eugenics in sociological parameters such that it is argued to be the basis of formations of social order. Galton, Francis, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, 1883 London: Macmillan, p199 The term eugenics was first coined in this book, based on the theory of origin by Charles Darwin, the author's cousin Rose, Nikolas, The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century, 2007, Princenton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press This book shows that even when there is no mandatory state-sponsored eugenics, it many still exist in a modern democratic set-up as in the present times Hawkins, Mike, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945, 1997, Cambridge University Press This book described eugenics as applied in the western world in the 19th and 20th century, particularly for the purpose of racial discrimination by Hitler Proctor, Racial hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988 This book argues that the cultural and social association that eugenics now has originated from its use in Nazi Germany Gould, Stephen Jay, The mismeasure of man, New York: Norton, 1981 This book argues that eugenics is a means used by most modern societies in order to discriminate against the poorer and weaker sections of society. Glad, John Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century, 2006 Hermitage Publishers This article questions the popularly held notion that Hitler considered Jews an inferior race. On the other hand, it argues that eugenics was used in order to create a dystepic system and counter an immensely group of intelligent, but non-Christian, people Cravens, Hamilton, The triumph of evolution: American scientists and the heredity-environment controversy, 1900-1941, 1978, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978 This book describes the thoughts regarding eugenics in the United States and policies based on eugenics in pursuit of racial discrimination. Richard Lynn, Eugenics: A Reassessment (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence), Praeger Publishers, 2001 This book, written by a psychologist, has openly called for the use of eugenics Kelves, Daniel, In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity (New York: Knopf, 1985 The book argues that eugenics can be practised both beneficially and with disastrous results. Watson, James D, A passion for DNA: Genes, genomes, and society (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000 This book describes the genome ethics project that safeguards against the manipulations that eugenics earlier faced Kaye, H L, The Social Meaning of Modern Biology: From Social Darwinism to Sociobiology, 1997, Yale University Press This book argues that while the earlier generation of eugenics proponents was discredited for eulogizing eugenics and promoting illiberal policies, the modern social biologists follow similar policies, although the science is now based on non-religious and liberal policies. Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1998 This novel, first published in 1932, showed how science and genetic engineering resulted in loss of individuality. Huxley, Aldous,, Brave New World Revisited, 1958 downloaded from http://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html In this article, Huxley argues that his views on genetics as he showed in the novel Brave New World" has come true earlier than he had expected Black, Edwin, Eugenics and the Nazis, the California connection http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/offSiteArchive/www.sfgate.com/index.html This article discusses how the Nazis used the theory of eugenics to their own purpose to argue that a non-Nordic did not have a right to live Read More