The history of eugenics is one of tragedy derived from science. Emerging from European and American academics in the 1860s and 1870s, Eugenics was initially the scientific, and later the political, idea that society and the human race could be improved genetically. Based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, the movement had champions from all sides, and through French and Raven’s five bases of power, those champions created a century of cruelty and pain, and the effects are still felt today.
French and Raven identified five ways that individuals can influence other people. They were expert, referent, legitimate, reward, and coercive power. All of these influences were present in the eugenics movement, notably in Germany where Hitler and the Nazis abused referent power, at first publishing propaganda extolling the virtues of purifying the arian race, and later actually murdering jews and gypsies. This was probably the 20th century’s best-known instance of genocide. In the United States, eugenics was applied through coercive and legitimate power, where state governments forced lobotomies and the sterilizations of tens of thousands (or more) of those who were deemed “feeble minded.” But the movement never would have started, and could not have continued without a body of doctors and scientists and their terrible demonstration of expert power.
With it’s foundations in the 1800s, the theory was first put forth and labeled by Francis Galton. A cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton was a psychologist, mathematician, anthropologist, and geneticist. He was, by all means, an expert on a wide range of subjects. Intrigued by Darwin’s theory of evolutionary genetics, Galton posited that humans, too, were engaged in a constant state of natural selection. He took his ideas further, though, and formed the scientific theory of eugenics.
Other experts took up his ideas and sought ways to apply eugenics concepts to the real world. In the United States, American William Gooddell, a gynecologist, advocated for forced castrations and forced abortions of the insane or mentally disabled.
Eugenics became popular in the 20th century, where political leaders, influenced by the expert power of scientists who had taken up the eugenics cause, enacted laws regarding birth control, forced sterilization, marriage restriction, and segregation. Embracing the expert opinions of scientists, governments around the world locked away the mentally ill, banned marriages or pregnancies for people with disabilities, and categorized and classified people based on their behaviors, all with the goal of improving the gene pool for the human race.
The history of eugenics lasted well into the second half of the 20th century in the United States. In North Carolina, there was even recently created an Office of Justice for Sterilization Victims, because there are people alive today who were forcibly sterilized by state hospitals. It’s important to recognize that, during its heyday, eugenics was a wildly popular notion, embraced by political leaders at every level of government and trumpeted by scientists at leading universities. Ignoring the civil rights of individuals became terrifyingly easy in the face of power backed by ‘experts’.
Science mixed with politics can result in horrible consequences. When political leaders, especially those who build referent, legitimate, and/or coercive power, embrace the flawed ideas of expert power, no one is safe. The results of that mixture are clear in the history of eugenics, and can still be felt today.
Links/ References:
http://www.sterilizationvictims.nc.gov/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
D’Antonio, Michael. The State Boys Rebellion. 2005, Simon & Schuster
Eugenics, as part of human history, is a very disturbing topic; as part of American history is repugnant. Years ago, I read a book that touched on the subject of eugenics, “Justice and the Human Genome Project”, which discussed the human rights element of the program’s American history. I had erroneously believed that the existence of eugenics in America was inspired by German research; instead, it was the other way around. Clearly the Nazi’s raised the practice to a new level of evil, but the practice in this country remains a horrible stain on our history. In fact, the program in America held the same goals of racial purification and a large number of Americans who supported eugenics, both scientists and laypeople, believed in utilizing forced euthanasia as a “solution” to the “problem” (Black, 2004).
Since that time I have become more attuned to the subtleties of this type of political posturing. I think it is a very interesting topic to consider in terms of leadership and power. You noted that you believe that eugenics was achieved through coercive and legitimate power in the US. I agree that these explain the power structure used to force compulsory and punitive sterilization on citizens. I would like to mention the presence of expert power, though. Expert power is derived from the status of a leader who possesses an exhaustive knowledge on a subject and followers defer to this knowledge in a situation that presents a need that can be met through the expert knowledge (Northouse, 2013). The early proponents of eugenics in America were professionals from various disciplines such as psychology, experts on inheritance (Mendelians) and biology (Black, 2004). By wielding expert power over businessmen, by exploiting fears and biases based on ideas of racial and social dominance, these scientists set the stage to turn pseudoscience into fact and prejudice into legislation.
From a leadership theory perspective, perhaps the advent of eugenics is an example of Leader-Member Exchange Theory run awry. The majority of criticisms of this theory posit that through the creation of an in-group and an out-group, the theory lays the groundwork for institutionalized discrimination (Northouse, 2013). If you look closely at the social systems that prospered (or stood to prosper) from eugenics legislation and the application of that legislation, it is clear that the eugenics program was, in practice, a direct attempt to maintain the in-group’s status through the subjugation of various collectives, or out-groups. The eugenics program, once the business-elite were on board (with their money, of course), was readily accepted by wealthy and middle-class Americans. The programs predominantly targeted people with intellectual and physical disabilities, but also declared people of non-European descent and the poor to be unfit under the law and thereby subject to forced sterilization by the state.
The class disparities are most evident in the punitive applications of the program. At the turn of the century it was a commonly held belief that criminality was genetically influenced (Lombardo, 2011). This put crime in the domain of eugenics and punitive sterilization was prescribed for certain offenders; however, there was a blanket exemption for criminals of the “white collar” variety. Apparently “executive on corporation” crimes lacked the same genetic component that was believed to cause crime outside of the business-world…
Black, Edwin (2004). War against the weak: eugenics and America’s campaign to create a master race. Thunder’s Mouth Press. ISBN 978-1-56858-321-1.
Lombardo, Paul A. (2011). A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-22269-5.
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.