WordPress doesn’t like my commnt on the Breed for Greed post, maybe you do:

Civilization depends totally upon innate intelligence.

‘Civilization’ is not an entity, it does not have rights and cannot be used as a bargaining chip over individuals (that are entities and can demand rights).

Simple: the least-intelligent people are having the most children.

The less educated (and so poorer) portions of the population have always had more offspring – in the past without social welfare many of the offspring would have died in childhood. Perhaps with the ‘best of the worst’ surviving to create the next generation?

So what should society do? That’s the important question…

Although a ‘passive’ eugenecist could argue that not supplying anyone with free medical care, etc. would be the best way of ‘standing idly by’, and allowing the cream of the crop to rise (and the unfit to whither on the vine). They may also point out that poorer, less intelligent (it is about intellect, right?) people generally have shorter lives.
If they are a more active eugenecist they may reach for Plato’s Republic to show a template for ‘eugenic’ separation of certain classes of people, without the need for sterilisation.
It is of course an incredibly flawed template, in all guises throughout history. In fact the state structures for societal/state support of the ‘stupid’ would be nothing to those required for eugenic separation or selection of the population. The eugenic state has to continuously monitor its population to prevent ‘degeneration’, its people have to give up their individual corporeal rights and submit to the state approving their right to reproduce, the state selected career path, the state will need to ensure that certain sets of mind are trained to not question eugenics so political programming would be required from an early age and continue throughout life

Of course ‘society’ has no natural right to demand that certain people do not reproduce. Just as I feel those who cannot naturally reproduce have no natural right to demand state funded IVF treatment, is that so different from saying that those who cannot afford children should not have them – it seems the only the proactive nature of the intervention is different.

Again eugenecists seem to assume that their offspring will be worthy, just as those who talk of overpopulation find ways to justify their own procreation and those who don’t oppose ID cards/NIR suppose the state could never disapprove of their own actions.

So what should society do? How should it enforce that the money we provide is being used positively and not wasted in ways that get our backs up?
If the state does nothing in this type of case what happens?
– Perhaps the parent starts stealing to support their ‘lifestyle’ (but maybe we feel that our taxes are being stolen anyway) and has a wider negative impact.
– Perhaps the children can’t be looked after and suffer neglect, I would say this is what ‘society’ most wishes to avoid.
– Perhaps even the ‘parent’ is still living with their parent(s) as the state has not provided any support at all.

This was the state of the slums before the welfare state existed. Would we let civilisation slip that far back if the state no longer provided, or would we support charities to a larger degree to prevent this would explicitly charitable support be any better focussed?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 8:35 am and is filed under Medicine, Politricks.