Re: [-empyre-] Re: Eugenics
ryan/all
In the late 1930s it was rather common to see statements such as "The
growing science of heredity is being used in this country to support
the political opinions of the extreme right..." This was a reasonably
accurate representation of how eugenics was applied unjustly to the
poor, the sick, women and of course along racial lines. Strictly
speaking it was a tool of overt social oppression, best understood
along class and gender lines. The examples you raised are certainly
interesting and they obviously can be made to fit loosely within the
generic ideology of eugenics as you are presenting it. But personally I
prefer simpler and more direct analyses of events like Katrina and for
eample the absence of a healthcare system in the US. In the former case
the concept of "organized abandonment" may address the deliberate
decision to allow the unnecessary disaster to take place, but the
empires decision to allow 30-40% of the local population to exist
without healthcare was surely not an aspect of the ideologies that we
loosely label 'eugenic'; but rather the consequence of the vast economic
and natural resources within the boundaries of the empire, and the
consequent ability of the empire to accept greater economic ups and
downs within the system where, for example, european states such as
sweden, uk, germany simply canbnot afford to sacrifice such a vast
subsection of working people. (Hirst et al Globalization in Question is
good on this).
"Why does the selection of biological traits in any way change the
political
situation? "
The technology being available to select the gender of a child may have
affects on the ongoing usually hidden holocaust identified in Sen's
"More than 100 million women" in which Sen notes that although in the
more developed countries the number of women outnumber the number of men
the opposite is true in Asia, Africa, Latin America, China... Sen
calculates a higher rate of female mortality variable from locale to
locale according to local economic differences. Will the technology
increase the number of missing women and how will it change the
political situation, for there is no question that it will.
"If non-heterosexuality is proven to be biological does that
close off the argument of their rights?"
The latter question is irrelevant - the very reason for the ontological
question of equality is to ensure that difference, whether founded on
intelligence, gender, pain, ideology or wealth is less than the
recognition that singularities A <> B, a man and a woman perhaps, are
always equivalent and equal prior to minor differences such as
eye-colour. The problem with the technology is the criteria by which a
person or a state will choose the trait... It is not then a question of
biology or desire then but always ideology. Personally I think we should
simply refuse to finance such obviously bad science, the scientist is
obviously an idiot or he'd not have wasted our time researching the
subject area.
It's upsetting that genetics is an area of scientific research that is
always so deeply engaged in the bio-political that it is almost
impossible to not be concerned about these issues.
best
s
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