Category: Herbert Spencer

Eugenics Quote of the Day: ‘Defective (ie, ‘disabled’) people should not be allowed to reproduce for the good of the state.’ RZ Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI

R.Z. Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI, “The Duty of the State in its Treatment of the Deaf and Dumb, the Blind, the Idiotic, the Crippled and Deformed, and the Insane.” [Source] In the progress of modern civilization, the state has come slowly to a recognition of certain duties and obligations to these unfortunate classes.  At …

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The Duty of the State in the Treatment of the Deformed: R. Z. Mason, Appleton WI, 1879

R.Z. Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI, “The Duty of the State in its Treatment of the Deaf and Dumb, the Blind, the Idiotic, the Crippled and Deformed, and the Insane.” [Source / Italics added, bold text added] In the progress of modern civilization, the state has come slowly to a recognition of certain duties and …

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Leon Cole on the Social Body and Our Duty to Future Generations

From The Relation of Philanthropy and Medicine to Race Betterment by Leon J. Cole, University of Wisconsin, at the First Conference for Race Betterment (1914) Among those who have in their treatment of this subject emphasized the importance of the natural selection viewpoint may be mentioned especially Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, and Karl Pearson, the …

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Eugenicists Shared in Common with the Nazis Concepts of the “Social Body.”

One of the under-appreciated elements of what animated the eugenics mindset was the view that each species could very well be conceived of as a ‘body’ of sort.  A different level of moral calculation could be applied to the ‘social organism’ or ‘social body’ then the individual.  This is no mere invoking of the ‘common …

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American and British Eugenicists Agree: Life Unworthy of Life

The phrase ‘life unworthy of life‘ is known particularly because of the fact that the Nazis used it when eliminating ‘defectives’ in their Action T4 project (and later, in reference to the Jews), but American and British Eugenicists also were known in terms of ‘lives unworthy of life.’  Quotes are provided below. ————- Herbert Spencer, …

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