Reinhard Heydrich cited “natural selection” as the reason for the Holocaust — Wannsee, January 20, 1942. That’s a fact, and it’s not funny. Nazi racial theory, promoted in movies, was called “NeoDarwinism.” That’s another fact. These things are documented and need not be accepted on the basis of faith or doubt. They really happened. Look them up.
*facepalm* Seriously, this sort of “logic” is just ridiculous. If John cannot see the fallacy in his babble himself, it’d be an exercise in futility to try to beat some sense into him.
I wish morons like John would get some historical knowledge. The term “Neo-Darwinism” was coined by George Romanes in 1895 but had nothing to do with any kind of political social theories, it was merely meant to distinguish Darwin’s ideas of natural selection from Lamarkism with its idea of inheritance of acquired charateristics.
Concepts like “social darwinism” and eugenics were wildly popular in Europe and the USA between 1900 and WWII, flourishing during the 1920s, but they are actually much older than that. The word “eugenics”, derived from Greek words meaning “well born”, was coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, who defined it as “The study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations”.
The Greek philosopher Plato thought that human reproduction should be controlled by the State, not only because the State (the Athenian Republic and other Greek citystates) should take an interest in the health of his citizens but also to improve the human race through selective breeding. Rome, Athens and Sparta practized infanticide of infants born sickly or out of wedlock.
Modern US-American Conservatives with their hatred of any form of government welfare for the poor would feel right at home in 16th century Britain. The idea that the poor and and those unable to work due to crippling injuries, illness or mental illness should not be supported by the government but put in workhouses and forced to work for their bread was very popular in Elizabethan England. The basic idea behind it (derived from Mercantilism and Puritanism) was that poverty and immorality (which were often seen as one and the same) were all caused by “bad breeding” and thus inherited. Thus it would be wrong to allow the poor to breed or to give them food, because if they maliciously persisted in being poor then it was obviously God’s punishment for them, and one should not interfere with God’s plan. It would be better to let them die.
Some centuries later, and we’re still in Great Britain. Along comes Thomas Maltus (1766
LOL! I’ve been looking through your comics and I love it! I’ve recently started my own online comic, but based on your archives, I have a lot of catching up to do!! Great stuff, I’ll be back!
The only true “abject poverty” is poverty where you starve to death or die of exposure. All other poverty is relative.
It’s not industrialization that’s creating poverty and genocide in various African (and other) nations (and failed nations). It’s not capitalism or industrialization that prevents food and other aid from getting to starving people. It’s man’s inhumanity to man – often religion-based, often race-based (or tribe, clan, big-little-endian…)
The terribly, terribly poor of most industrialized nations are poor only relative to their rich (or middle-class) countrymen/women. Compared to folks in [say] western Sudan, large parts of Haiti, etc., etc., the poor of North America and Europe are rich.
Not many people truly starve to death in either place.
Not many people die of exposure for lack of a sheltered place to sleep.
If your choice is between spending your money (that you got by panhandling) on food or buying cheap booze and cigarettes, you aren’t anywhere near as poor as people in countries where your beloved “government” or the local strongman and his goons intercept the food and medicine from the Red Cross and sell it on the black market (while you starve and die of diphtheria, having been forced off your land by the goons).
Still, it sucks to be poorer than everybody around you, especially on a cold winter night when the shelter is full.
Meanwhile, before industrialization in Europe and North America, far fewer people lived in the cities… but they sure as hell weren’t wealthy. The majority scraped by as indentured labor for a few wealthy land-owners. People flocked to cities because even the possibility of a low-pay, grinding job in a filthy, noisy factory was often more attractive than staying on [somebody else's] the farm.
Remember, even those peasants that controlled a small plot that they could call their own could give that to only one inheriting child (such small farms could not be further subdivided and still provide a living), yet their churches kept them producing babies and babies and more babies. If the PTB didn’t start a war every few years, to use up the excess poor country folk, they had nowhere to go.
Meanwhile, some claim that much/most of the effective charity is done by religious organizations. That might even be true – but then it was religious policies and teachings that kept people producing too many babies for the available resources – i.e., making poverty in order to be charitable toward it. Hmm. So that’s where Mother Teresa learned her craft!
It’s not enough to just read some history and quote some dates and names. You also have to understand it.
All poverty is relative.
But . . . right on, about the colonialist adventures. North American natives really needed blankets-laced-with-disease, alcohol, and other benefits of civilization.
November 24th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Reinhard Heydrich cited “natural selection” as the reason for the Holocaust — Wannsee, January 20, 1942. That’s a fact, and it’s not funny. Nazi racial theory, promoted in movies, was called “NeoDarwinism.” That’s another fact. These things are documented and need not be accepted on the basis of faith or doubt. They really happened. Look them up.
November 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
*facepalm* Seriously, this sort of “logic” is just ridiculous. If John cannot see the fallacy in his babble himself, it’d be an exercise in futility to try to beat some sense into him.
I wish morons like John would get some historical knowledge. The term “Neo-Darwinism” was coined by George Romanes in 1895 but had nothing to do with any kind of political social theories, it was merely meant to distinguish Darwin’s ideas of natural selection from Lamarkism with its idea of inheritance of acquired charateristics.
Concepts like “social darwinism” and eugenics were wildly popular in Europe and the USA between 1900 and WWII, flourishing during the 1920s, but they are actually much older than that. The word “eugenics”, derived from Greek words meaning “well born”, was coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, who defined it as “The study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations”.
The Greek philosopher Plato thought that human reproduction should be controlled by the State, not only because the State (the Athenian Republic and other Greek citystates) should take an interest in the health of his citizens but also to improve the human race through selective breeding. Rome, Athens and Sparta practized infanticide of infants born sickly or out of wedlock.
Modern US-American Conservatives with their hatred of any form of government welfare for the poor would feel right at home in 16th century Britain. The idea that the poor and and those unable to work due to crippling injuries, illness or mental illness should not be supported by the government but put in workhouses and forced to work for their bread was very popular in Elizabethan England. The basic idea behind it (derived from Mercantilism and Puritanism) was that poverty and immorality (which were often seen as one and the same) were all caused by “bad breeding” and thus inherited. Thus it would be wrong to allow the poor to breed or to give them food, because if they maliciously persisted in being poor then it was obviously God’s punishment for them, and one should not interfere with God’s plan. It would be better to let them die.
Some centuries later, and we’re still in Great Britain. Along comes Thomas Maltus (1766
December 14th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
LOL! I’ve been looking through your comics and I love it! I’ve recently started my own online comic, but based on your archives, I have a lot of catching up to do!! Great stuff, I’ll be back!
December 15th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
That’s great Jason. We need more comic artists tackling this subject!
March 11th, 2010 at 10:47 am
The only true “abject poverty” is poverty where you starve to death or die of exposure. All other poverty is relative.
It’s not industrialization that’s creating poverty and genocide in various African (and other) nations (and failed nations). It’s not capitalism or industrialization that prevents food and other aid from getting to starving people. It’s man’s inhumanity to man – often religion-based, often race-based (or tribe, clan, big-little-endian…)
The terribly, terribly poor of most industrialized nations are poor only relative to their rich (or middle-class) countrymen/women. Compared to folks in [say] western Sudan, large parts of Haiti, etc., etc., the poor of North America and Europe are rich.
Not many people truly starve to death in either place.
Not many people die of exposure for lack of a sheltered place to sleep.
If your choice is between spending your money (that you got by panhandling) on food or buying cheap booze and cigarettes, you aren’t anywhere near as poor as people in countries where your beloved “government” or the local strongman and his goons intercept the food and medicine from the Red Cross and sell it on the black market (while you starve and die of diphtheria, having been forced off your land by the goons).
Still, it sucks to be poorer than everybody around you, especially on a cold winter night when the shelter is full.
Meanwhile, before industrialization in Europe and North America, far fewer people lived in the cities… but they sure as hell weren’t wealthy. The majority scraped by as indentured labor for a few wealthy land-owners. People flocked to cities because even the possibility of a low-pay, grinding job in a filthy, noisy factory was often more attractive than staying on [somebody else's] the farm.
Remember, even those peasants that controlled a small plot that they could call their own could give that to only one inheriting child (such small farms could not be further subdivided and still provide a living), yet their churches kept them producing babies and babies and more babies. If the PTB didn’t start a war every few years, to use up the excess poor country folk, they had nowhere to go.
Meanwhile, some claim that much/most of the effective charity is done by religious organizations. That might even be true – but then it was religious policies and teachings that kept people producing too many babies for the available resources – i.e., making poverty in order to be charitable toward it. Hmm. So that’s where Mother Teresa learned her craft!
It’s not enough to just read some history and quote some dates and names. You also have to understand it.
All poverty is relative.
But . . . right on, about the colonialist adventures. North American natives really needed blankets-laced-with-disease, alcohol, and other benefits of civilization.
– K