Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the familyKnight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Science
Taboo and genetics : $b A study of the biological, sociological and psychological foundation of the family
Knight, Melvin M. (Melvin Moses)
Sex (Biology); Sex (Psychology); Taboo; Women
If society is to successfully meet the present situation it must
utilize its psychological insight to remedy conditions which are
obviously dysgenic and detrimental to the welfare of the race. If the
egoistic and highly individualized modern man and woman are induced to
sacrifice personal ambitions in the interests of reproduction, for
instance, it will only be because society has learned to turn those same
egoistic impulses to its own ends. This will never be accomplished by
the forces of tradition or by any such superimposed method of control as
conscription for parenthood. There is too much of a spirit of freedom
and individual liberty in the social mind to-day for any such measure to
meet with success. The same spirit of freedom which formerly burst the
bonds of superstition and entered into the world of science is now as
impatient of restraint of its emotional life as it formerly was of
restriction of its intellectual search for the truth.
Therefore society can no longer depend upon taboo standards crystallized
into institutionalized forms as a means of control. It must appeal to
more rational motives if it expects to have any degree of influence over
its most intelligent and energetic members. Only when the production of
eugenic offspring brings the same social approval and reward that is
meted out for other activities will the ineradicable and irrespressible
egoistic desires that now prevent individuals from assuming the
responsibilities of family life be enlisted in the very cause to which
they are now so hostile. When the same disapproval is manifested for the
shirking of reproductive activities by the eugenically fit that is now
directed toward lack of patriotism in other lines, the number of
voluntary celibates in society will be materialy decreased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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