New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is out with another controversial and important piece — focused on the topic of eugenics. Douthat’s take is important for two reasons: First, of course, is the cliche that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Second, it is very timely (though I’ll leave it for others to debate the very serious implications and ethical conundrums that new technology will present for parents and doctors.)
What I found interesting is that historically, a belief in eugenics was a hobbyhorse of progressives. As Douthat writes:
The American elite’s pre-World War II commitment to breeding out the “unfit” — defined variously as racial minorities, low-I.Q. whites, the mentally and physically handicapped, and the criminally inclined — is a story that defies easy stereotypes about progress and enlightenment. On the one hand, these American eugenicists tended to be WASP grandees like Fisher — ivory-tower dwellers and privileged have-mores with an obvious incentive to invent spurious theories to justify their own position.
But these same eugenicists were often political and social liberals — advocates of social reform, partisans of science, critics of stasis and reaction.
…
From Teddy Roosevelt to the Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, fears about “race suicide” and “human weeds” were common among self-conscious progressives, who saw the quest for a better gene pool as of a piece with their broader dream of human advancement.
Conservatives have long been accused of practicing “Social Darwinism,” an economic worldview in which the strong survive and the weak go away. And yet, it was progressives who were drawn to overtly apply this theory to humanity. Why?
There are reasons why conservatives might generally eschew such thinking.
First, of course, is the strong influence of the church that is prevalent within conservatism. But there’s more to this than ethics and and values influenced by religious faith. The essence of conservatism is “epistemological modesty” — a world view that recognizes that playing God is a foolish conceit. In a sense, this makes conservatives a bit like Jeff Goldbloom’s character in Jurassic Park.
Economist F.A. Hayek believed that markets know better than central planning. Ethics aside, conservatives believe in diversity, and are skeptical of the notion that we could accurately predict which attributes would be truly superior — even if we wanted to.
Consider how an airplane that was largely considered inferior helped save Western civilization:
[T]he so-called “experts” — including Winston Churchill — opposed production of the plane in the 1930s. In all their planning for the future, it seems, they never predicted “the evolution of aerial combat.” Fortunately for Britain, the experts didn’t have the power to strangle the baby in the crib. The Air Ministry had the leeway to produce some planes on their own. And so, the plane that would later save the island by intercepting German bombers — was produced against the odds.
There are many evils in the world. But the quixotic quest to bring about the perfection of man — the seductive belief that taking drastic steps today will create a utopia tomorrow — is, perhaps, the most dangerous.
As the world changes, these ideas tend to come in and out of vogue. But our values should not change. This is one of those examples where conservatives must be willing to play the long game — of taking short term political losses, if need be — while preserving the best of human values.