Post by Steve Gardner on Dec 2, 2007 21:14:28 GMT
In my view, Human Rights are conferred ‘Rights’. They are the product of the intellectual mind, not natural, intrinsic Rights. They are conceived by a few whose political agendas have corrupted their interpretation of what constitutes a ‘Right’. Their ‘Rights’, for example, are simultaneously used to defend our freedoms as well as to destroy them. The so-called preservation of Human Rights is often used to justify acts of oppression - witness the ‘liberation’ of Iraq. Such hypocrisy.
This goes hand-in-hand to some extent with the misguided notion of Equality. We are not all equal – this is blindingly obvious. We have different capacities and values in society. Don't, however, confuse my dismissal of the flawed notion of intrinsic Equality with that of Equal Opportunity. We should all have equal opportunities, it’s just that some are eminently more capable of capitalising upon them than others. Some of this has to do with circumstance, the rest is down to ability, or lack of.
If Equality and Rights are the product of the human intellect, then our civility will be own undoing. We are not born with natural Human Rights, only Rights ascribed to us in law. We are not all born naturally Equal, we have Equal Rights ascribed to us in law. These concepts protect the weaker members of society at the expense of the stronger.
Nature takes a long-term view. Nature ensures those fit enough to survive do so, for they will be best equipped to deal with the challenges that lie ahead. To dilute the strength of the population - as Human Rights threatens to - is to ultimately diminish the potential of the species, as Sir Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Dawin, realised.
He saw in Darwin’s studies that natural selection is distorted by social conventions. He felt that this trend, if left unchecked would lead to a ‘reversion towards mediocrity’. In 1865, he coined the phrase, ‘Eugenics’, literally meaning ‘good birth’. In its most simplistic form, his view was that some sort of intervention in the human selection process would lead to a preponderance of ‘genius’ and ‘talent’, two of the qualities he most admired in the human condition.
As a result of his work and others, eugenics programmes appeared around the world, many for reasons that would not be considered acceptable today, such as the whitening of society in some Latin American countries; or the prohibition of marriage between the deaf in order to rid the state of Massachusetts of deafness.
Of course, the most notorious example is that of Hitler’s Germany. As a result, the term ‘eugenics’ has principally come to be associated with Nazi abuses and, in particular, the Holocaust. Eugenics is now more synonymous with racism and genocide than with Galton’s original meaning.
Today, opponents to eugenics argue that it is immoral and unscientific. To the extent that eugenics means ‘genocide’, they are of course absolutely right. But, to my way of thinking, we still practice eugenics, and it’s quite a widespread practice.
The perpetuation of a class system leads to a de facto selection programme, for example. Prenatal screening inevitably leads to higher rates of abortion if foetal ‘abnormalities’ are detected. The drive towards increased university attendance rates not only draws on the idea that genius is desirable, but also that clever people will meet clever people and have clever children. Other examples include the separation of the mentally ill from society and, in some cases, their forced sterilisation; racial segregation; designer babies (both in terms of a desired gender and in terms of their genetic composition); and schools selection policies.
So, as you can see, social engineering is going on all around us. But is it right and, if Dalton's view that social conventions such as Human Rights leads to a 'reversion towards mediocrity', are we doing enough of it?
This goes hand-in-hand to some extent with the misguided notion of Equality. We are not all equal – this is blindingly obvious. We have different capacities and values in society. Don't, however, confuse my dismissal of the flawed notion of intrinsic Equality with that of Equal Opportunity. We should all have equal opportunities, it’s just that some are eminently more capable of capitalising upon them than others. Some of this has to do with circumstance, the rest is down to ability, or lack of.
If Equality and Rights are the product of the human intellect, then our civility will be own undoing. We are not born with natural Human Rights, only Rights ascribed to us in law. We are not all born naturally Equal, we have Equal Rights ascribed to us in law. These concepts protect the weaker members of society at the expense of the stronger.
Nature takes a long-term view. Nature ensures those fit enough to survive do so, for they will be best equipped to deal with the challenges that lie ahead. To dilute the strength of the population - as Human Rights threatens to - is to ultimately diminish the potential of the species, as Sir Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Dawin, realised.
He saw in Darwin’s studies that natural selection is distorted by social conventions. He felt that this trend, if left unchecked would lead to a ‘reversion towards mediocrity’. In 1865, he coined the phrase, ‘Eugenics’, literally meaning ‘good birth’. In its most simplistic form, his view was that some sort of intervention in the human selection process would lead to a preponderance of ‘genius’ and ‘talent’, two of the qualities he most admired in the human condition.
As a result of his work and others, eugenics programmes appeared around the world, many for reasons that would not be considered acceptable today, such as the whitening of society in some Latin American countries; or the prohibition of marriage between the deaf in order to rid the state of Massachusetts of deafness.
Of course, the most notorious example is that of Hitler’s Germany. As a result, the term ‘eugenics’ has principally come to be associated with Nazi abuses and, in particular, the Holocaust. Eugenics is now more synonymous with racism and genocide than with Galton’s original meaning.
Today, opponents to eugenics argue that it is immoral and unscientific. To the extent that eugenics means ‘genocide’, they are of course absolutely right. But, to my way of thinking, we still practice eugenics, and it’s quite a widespread practice.
The perpetuation of a class system leads to a de facto selection programme, for example. Prenatal screening inevitably leads to higher rates of abortion if foetal ‘abnormalities’ are detected. The drive towards increased university attendance rates not only draws on the idea that genius is desirable, but also that clever people will meet clever people and have clever children. Other examples include the separation of the mentally ill from society and, in some cases, their forced sterilisation; racial segregation; designer babies (both in terms of a desired gender and in terms of their genetic composition); and schools selection policies.
So, as you can see, social engineering is going on all around us. But is it right and, if Dalton's view that social conventions such as Human Rights leads to a 'reversion towards mediocrity', are we doing enough of it?
