Eugenics is a socialist idea.
A bogus argument that socialists have long been promoting is that
Hitler's National Socialism had nothing to do with Marxism or
conventional socialism. They have maintained that Marxism is
egalitarian whereas Nazism was rightist and promoted political social
Darwinism in its inequality, racism and militarism.
Why is it then that at the turn of the
century, George Bernard Shaw, perhaps the most famous and articulate
proponent of "democratic Marxism", known in England as Fabian socialism,
created "Man and Superman" the most social Darwinian and
Nietzschean play ever written? Don't "liberals" usually associate the
aggressive, militaristic and "might is right" philosophy
of Friederich Nietzsche with Hitler's National Socialism?
If Hitler had read "Man and Superman", which appeared about
1909, he doubtless would have like it. One important idea
informing this didactic drama is that the Life Force (Shaw's
God) is directing the evolution of homo sapiens towards a kind of
superman, a human being of superior intelligence and strong
will. Of course, natural selection in courtship and mating
plays a seminal role.
Shaw believed that the Life Force is stronger in the woman,
and the love game is extremely serious, just as Nietzsche had written
that "love is war". In his play Shaw clearly demonstrates through
his heroine Anne that it is the female that actually makes the
choice in mating and procreation. The male's belief in the opposite
is only a delusion.
Shaw, a socialist, is implying that selective breeding, a form of
eugenics, is both necessary and desirable. Further, the reader or
audience is almost forced to infer that the playwright believed a
minority of human beings is superior to the general population and that
it is the will of the Life Force that power will devolve to this
intellectually, physically and morally superior elite. The play
definitely has fascist overtones and in no way supports egalitarianism.
Since "Man and Superman" was written by a Fabian or "democratic"
socialist it has to be disturbing to all Marxists and socialists today.
But most of them that appear on the Internet would be too stupid
and bigoted to understand the implications of what has been stated
here. |
