Promethia: Eugenics has been around for quite awhile, even before WWII, but when the most extreme form of eugenics, the Holocaust, was practiced by Hitler, no one dared to propose eugenic-based ideas for a long time after that. Only recently has discussion about eugenics resurfaced because of the genetic discoveries and technologies, which have been advancing by leaps and bounds.  Seymour W. Itzkoff is a scholar in favor of eugenics and he has written several books about his related beliefs.  Itzkoff’s beliefs directly oppose the egalitarian view that all individuals and groups of individuals are created equal.  Egalitarians account for the difference in group and individual status by arguing that the a lower class is a lower class because it is underprivileged and denied the same opportunities as upper classes are.  Itzkoff believes that there are crucial inherited discrepancies between both individuals and groups.  He believes that the variations in both socioeconomic status and the ability to be educated are direct results of these crucial inherited discrepancies.  Itzkoff goes as far as believing that “intelligence is part of each individual’s inheritance, as much as ones height and personality.”  These beliefs and more are explained in all three of his books published from 1991 to 1994 (Vanhanen).

In Human Intelligence and National Power:  A Political Essay in Sociobiology, Itzkoff discusses different groups in the context of evolution.  He also draws attention to the aftereffects that the variation in intelligence around the world has caused, such as the fall of communism, Japan’s rise to power, and the ongoing problems in third world countries (Vanhanen).

In The Road to Equality: Evolution and Social Reality, Itzkoff claims that the reasons for the failure of egalitarian and Marxist regimes to create a classless society was that their presumptions of human nature were incorrect.  He goes on to state that these regimes were unable to see that the variations that are inherent in the intelligence of both individuals and groups.  Itzkoff concludes this book with his belief that the inherent intellectual variations that exist between both groups and individuals are largely responsible for the never-ending social dilemmas in the United States (Vanhanen).

Lastly, in The Decline of Intelligence in America: A Strategy for National Renewal, Itzkoff explores the problems in America, which are due, in his opinion, to the overall degradation of general intelligence.  He focuses on the idea that because the lower classes in America are having the most children, and a population of permanently poor third world Americans is emerging. The solution he recommends is as follows:  “the government should stimulate the finest to form families of the traditional sort in which children are conceived, born, raised, and educated to the highest levels for which they are capable; and the helpless should be encouraged and guided not to have children that they cannot rear and educate to functional cultural levels” (Vanhanen).

There are many different options that the study of eugenics has to offer. Population eugenics has to do with the goal of improving or enhancing the make-up of large-scale populations.  One example of this would be to provide rewards for large numbers of individuals with particular traits to marry and have many children.  Another example could be encouraging public health testing for neural tube defects.  The goal of this practice would be to shift the characteristics of the gene pool into whichever specific direction is chosen (Site 4).

Individuals, who are in no way motivated to change the make-up of society, can practice individual eugenics.  Individual eugenics allows individual parents to bless their own children with any number of desired traits.  Implanting DNA, which represents a favorable trait, into an egg to have the trait present in one’s child is an example of individual eugenics.  A further example would be aborting a pregnancy when a fetus is diagnosed to be infected with cystic fibrosis (Site 4).

 

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