A history of social thoughtBogardus, Emory S. (Emory Stephen)
History
A history of social thought
Bogardus, Emory S. (Emory Stephen)
Social psychology; Sociology -- History
The low birth rate of the superior stocks is due to several factors:
(1) The lengthening period of education and of professional training
calls for the postponement of marriage. (2) The desire to give children
the best advantages limits the birth rate. (3) The increasing spirit of
independence on the part of women causes a postponement of marriage
and a limitation of the number of children. These and other causes have
produced a differential birth rate in favor of the inferior strains.
Eugenic thought urges that the differential be reversed in favor of the
superior strains. This conclusion implies that the dysgenic classes
must be prevented from producing children, that the poor must be raised
to higher educational and economic levels and taught to limit the birth
rate, and that the eugenically superior be taught to increase the birth
rate.
Eugenics pronounces war to be both dysgenic and eugenic.[XIX-11] (1)
It is dysgenic in that the bravest and the physically best are killed
first. In the case of a long war only the weakest men physically and
mentally are left alive to propagate the race. (2) War is dysgenic
in that it produces a large number of hurried marriages. Rational
choices of mates are supplanted by sudden emotional reactions. (3) War
is dysgenic in that sex immorality greatly increases. Prostitution
flourishes in the neighborhood of military encampments, unless rigid
means of control are established. (4) Again, the dysgenic effect of war
is seen in the period of socio-mental unrest which always follows war,
and which among other things undermines rational sexual selection.
The chief eugenic effect of war is manifested during the period of
training. This preparation period accents the importance of a strong
physique and health measures. An insipid, stoop-shouldered population
of city young men may be transformed into an army of fit soldiers.
However, the conclusions are obvious that the dysgenic effects of
war are far more potent than the eugenic gains, and that the eugenic
advantages may he acquired in other ways than by promulgating war.
Eugenics looks askance at the feminism movement. Feminism once meant
the development of the womanly traits of the sex. It now refers to the
elimination as far as possible of sex differences. It would make women
as nearly as possible like men. Eugenics objects to this trend, since
it underestimates the importance of the fact that women physically
are built to be mothers. To the extent that women enter into all the
occupations, they will become men-like; and their efficiency as mothers
of the race will decrease, and the race will suffer.
The economic equality of the sexes is a satisfactory doctrine to the
eugenist if the doctrine is extended to make motherhood a salaried
occupation, like mill work or stenography.[XIX-12] “Child-bearing
should be recognized as being as worthy of remuneration as any
occupation which men enter, and should be paid for (by the state) on
the same basis.”[XIX-13]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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