Printer Friendlier VersionSocial Darwinism
Thomas Malthus
Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau
Herbert Spencer
Richard Hoftstadter
State Experiments with Rationalism
Social Darwinism and Democratic Societies
Eugenics
Famous Proponents of Eugenics
T.H. Huxley
H.G. Wells
Irving Fisher
Theodore Roosevelt
Winston Churchill
Unity Mitford
W.B. Yeats
George Bernard Shaw
D.H. Lawrence
T.S. Eliot
Virginia Woolf
John Davison Rockefeller
Frederick Osborn
Alexis Carrel
Andrew Carnegie
Henry Ford
John Harvey Kellogg
Clarence J. Gamble
Francis Galton
Julian Huxley
Prince Bernhard
Prince Philip
House of Windsor (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and the Nazis
Early Anthropology and Eugenics
Types of Eugenics
Existentialists and Social Darwinism
Introduction
Types of Existentialists
Atheistic Existentialism
Theistic Existentialism
Nihilism
Critics of Existentialism
Soren Kierkegaard
Friedrich Nietzsche
Morality
Atheism vs Theism
Darwinism and Social Darwinism:
Atheism often draws heavily on Darwinism (the scientific theory of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - pictured above), which in itself does not necessarily exclude the concept of God. However, it does take Darwinism (the evolution of a species) out of its original intended context, and applies it to every aspect of our lives (i.e Social Darwinism), which the theory was not originally designed for. Darwinism, like any scientific theory, is wrought with problems, and may well be superceded in the future with a revised Darwinist theory. Some of the issues of modern Darwinism are the origin of new features, and the fact that mutation and new species have occurred suddenly without a distinct evolutionary path. This may be due to chromosome pairs matching up in an offspring, thus meaning that the spread of the new chromosome may spread by natural selection through a population, but that the actual physical characteristics associated with it do not manifest until a matching pair is present.
Natural Selection and Social Darwinism are defined at the links below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
'Social Darwinism is a theory that competition among all individuals, groups, nations or ideas drives social evolution in human societies. The term draws upon Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, where competition between individual organisms drives biological evolutionary change (speciation) through the survival of the fittest. The term was popularized in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter, and has generally been used by critics rather than advocates of what the term is supposed to represent. While the term has been applied to the claim that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection can be used to understand the social endurance of a nation or country, social Darwinism commonly refers to ideas that predate Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. Others whose ideas are given the label include the 18th century clergyman Thomas Malthus, and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who founded eugenics towards the end of the 19th century. Some claim that it supports racism on the lines set out by Arthur de Gobineau before Darwin published his theories, which directly contradict Darwin's own work. This classification of Social Darwinism constitutes part of the reaction against the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.'
Apart from the ethical issues with Social Darwinism, there are a number of conceptual issues also, in that it does not embody Darwinism as much as it would like to think it does. Social Darwinism relied very heavily on the theory of Natural Selection, but not so much on the Theory of Sexual Selection. The Theory of Natural Selection is that which describes the mechanism for evolutionary change based on the relative statistical probabilities of the likelihood of survival of different genes. It is based on an animal's resilience to disease, its environment and ability to avoid predators and acquire sufficient nutrition. However, the survival of genes is also very much dependent not only on who survives and who is alive at the time, but on who is the most sexually attractive. Darwin was puzzled at Peacock's plumage and its function, as it was in stark opposition to his theory of Survival of the Fittest. If anything, a peacock that was camouflaged or more fierce looking would be more likely to survive surely? He eventually realised that sexual attraction was also a factor in determining which males acquired mating partners, explaining the vibrantly coloured plumages of the male peacocks. Below is a photograph of a peacock trying to 'woo' a peahen. The same principle applies in human populations, although matters here are more complex as there are other factors that determine attractiveness, often based on cultural biases, psychology (confidence and sense of sexuality), class, fashion and many other determinands.
Survival of the Fittest is in a sense not strictly true as it is survival of the 'strongest' gene. It is our genes that give us immortality, but procreating and spreading our genes through successive generations. The theory goes that qualities that give an animal a quality that is less conducive to its survival relative to other genes stands less chance of appearing in subsequent generations, and is thereby 'filtered' out. However, being the 'fittest' and being the 'strongest' is not the only strategy for survival. Higher evolved animals display elements of altruism, and altruism is indeed a competitive quality that promotes the likelihood of survival and the proliferation of one's genes in subsequent generations. Examples of altruism include kinship altruism, where if one helps another member of one's group, then that favour will be repaid on another occasion, perhaps when one's survival depends on it. Groups stick together as there is safety in numbers but also as one has fellow kinsmen and women who have 'got your back'. Such altruism is evident in those animals that care for their young and try to protect their young. Altruism in this sense is often slightly limited, in that altruism towards your kin or species is in your best interests of survival, but too much altruism beyond your kin group is perhaps counter productive to your survival.
However, the genetic/biological need for kinship altruism does not explain the extent of altruism amongst primates, dolphins and indeed humans. Chimpanzees and gorillas groom each other, not just for parasites, but comfort each other when an individual is upset. Dolphins have been documented to protect humans from sharks. Why? This is not 'logical' from a purely 'Survival of the Fittest' perspective. The social bonds between animals in a group in many species clearly exceed those of their 'survival needs'. Is this 'unnecessary' altruism in fact a genetic strategy to ensure a 'tighter' group? Up to a point, but excessive emotional support does not necessarily increase the loyalty of your kin beyond the basics of sharing food and fighting predators. It is perhaps more important in complex societies such as in humans. Altruism in human societies takes on a different context as humans in modern societies do not just live within a small kinship, but meet many strangers whom they are not likely to ever meet again. Does the human brain on some level treat everyone as one's 'kin' still and exhibit a certain level of altruism towards one's 'brother man' even if it is not 'logical' to do so for one's genes own survival?
Veneer Altruism is the term often used to describe a superficial altruism, where under the shallow displays of altruism, people/animals are basically out for themselves. The term 'The Selfish Gene' was coined by Richard Dawkins in the book of the same name. The book however argues that 'Selfish Gene' means a biological code to promote the survival of one's genes by a myriad of methods, not only being 'strongest'. This book examines the above issues.
In Sperm Banks, women do not often choose a sperm sample randomly, but want to know all about the donors, so that they can pick the 'best' donor to produce the 'best' child. This is where Sexual Selection comes in, where the most sexually attractive male is likely to pass on his genes. But sexual attraction, based on looks, fitness, health and charm, perhaps even education and financial success, are not the only criteria used by prospective mothers. It has been found that a 'nice guy' or a man who has displayed altruistic behaviour is considered an extremely attractive donor. Altruism is therefore an important factor in Sexual Selection.
There are other instincts that ensure an animal's survival, apart from the Fight or Flight Response (which manifests itself as fear, hatred and stress in modern human societies), sexual attraction and altruism as discussed above. One example is the natural distaste for bodily fluids, urine and excrement, and noxious odours, which is a survival mechanism to ensure that one does not contaminate one's own abode/cave/house, for health reasons. If one continually defacated in the place where one slept and ate, then one would eventually pick up parasites and bacterial infections and most probably die young. This is where the desire in modern societies to sanitise defacation in a hygienic and pleasant environment in a toilet. Where the 'nasty deed' is compartmentalised and hidden away. However, in some countries, there are different taboos about defacation and it is not uncommon in certain parts of India to see a person taking a dump in the middle of the street, or to defacate into a hole in a room full of other people doing the same. These scenarios still reflect this desire for hygiene, as one still would not defacate in one's own garden or house on the floor, unless one was a child or mentally ill. Some animals clearly do this, and are unaware of the concepts of 'home' in this sense, as they would not take a dump in their own sleeping area.
Eugenicists and Social Darwinists are not embodying Natural Selection but a type of Controlled Selection, or the manual interference in the processes of selection based on arbitrary ideals and beliefs. This may or may not result in the 'acceleration' of Natural Selection, but in a selection based on human whims and prejudices. It enters the murky area of deciding 'who lives, who dies and who is 'allowed' to reproduce'. There is nothing 'natural' about human intervention in population control. In nature, population control occurs as a result of competition over resources, resilience to disease and through predation, usually by other species. If modern human society theoretically protects the sick and weak, then simply killing them off and preventing them from breeding is not 'undoing' this protective aspect.
One may argue of course that anything an animal does or a group of animals is observed to do on a large scale is 'natural', without human interference, as are phases of 'equilibrium'. However, equilibrium is just a conflict of opposites or conflicting positions, or competition, where no observable short term swing is observed. An equilibrium in chemical terms may indeed occur, when two solutions mix and react, depending on temperature and pressure etc. But in the natural world, an equilibrium is a transient concept, and change inevitably results. Species evolve or die out. It could be argued that anything humans do is also 'natural' as it is merely a reflection of what humans are able to do. The classification of what is natural and what isn't is difficult, as virtually everything on the planet is human-managed to some degree, even the 'natural environment', e.g. grasslands, artificial lakes and channels, coastlines etc. On a physical level, one might argue that certain types of diet are not natural, as the body is not designed for them, taking in account large population numbers and health statistics, but this is perhaps still for some a matter of debate.
Industrialists and capitalists have traditionally promoted the idea of 'Survival of the Fittest' as they believe it best describes the principles of entrepreneurship and aggressive competition in the marketplace, where the sharpest and most motivated get to the top and gain the biggest market share. However, a sound business is not just based on 'survival of the fittest' but also reliant on treating one's staff with respect, utilising those with the best skills for their given role and those with creative flair, and not just those who are the most ruthless. Ruthlessness is good for certain types of job, within certain boundaries, but it is not the optimal skill for one's entire workforce. Everything requires balance. Stabbing employees in the back and manipulation, when one can get away with it, are no doubt good techniques for getting to the top, but are they ethical or good practices to encourage?A what point does 'fair play and healthy competition' become 'nasty'?
Enron, for example, the bottom 15% of traders with the lowest results were fired each year. This was meant to be 'good for business', an example of the 'Vitality Curve', but just encouraged a culture of exaggerating one's results and eventually brought down the company on account of a widespread culture of fraud, corruption and money laundering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve
Clearly in modern human societies, besides the need to survive, human culture has attempted to elevate man above the basic needs of the animal, to liberate the human mind from the trappings of the animal world. Whilst this indeed results in much freedom for self-expression and individualism, it has also certain consequences, such as the enlargement of the human ego, the degeneration of our natural senses, a lack of 'feeling' and sense of connection with the human body, meaninglessness and a disconnection from one's fundamental needs of adventure and more animalistic needs. This is explored more in the section below on Existentialism.
Charles Darwin himself was opposed to slavery, and did not believe in the concept of inferior races, but merely was observing the mechanism in nature that connects all life together and how species evolve. He did not believe in applying his theory to manual intervention in human societies, like eugenics, and believed that man's goood nature and altruism towards the weak is what made him greater than animals.
Ironically, Darwinism, whilst used by many to support ideas of human instigated selection in our societies in the previous century and indeed this one, in varying senses, the theory of natural selection was used to establish the discipline of ecology, i.e. the science of the conditions of that natural selection or competition in the nature world, resulting in the destruction and creation of new species, and the ecological balance of species in their fight for survival. The resulted in a gradual awareness of the impact humankind has on the environment, in terms of pollution and pesticide usage, and indeed the increased rate of species extinction, caused by altering sea water chemistry and water temperature (coral reef bleaching) and rain forest encroachment (highest concentration of species). Darwin himself, the first person to study coral reefs (from the west and from a scientific perspective), stated that their survival could be affected by changes in sea water chemistry not preceptible to the human eye. This perhaps explains why some of the 20th Century Eugenicists moved away from population control and Eugenics to Fauna Ecology NGOs and indeed UN Agricultural legislation (not always in the interest of ecology) - a shift in application of Darwinism, from an area it was not intended for, to an area where it actually was inteneded to be applied to; both areas involving controlling and influencing others of course, having their 'best' interests at heart, cynics might argue.
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Thomas Malthus:
The English political economist and demographer the Reverend Dr Thomas Robert Malthus FRS lived from 13 February 1766 to 23 December 1834). He expressed views on population growth and noted the potential for populations to increase rapidly. In the first edition of the Essay, Malthus suggested that only natural causes (such as accidents and old age), misery (war, pestilence, plague, and above all famine) [Book I, Ch. 2], and vice (which for Malthus included infanticide, murder, contraception and homosexuality) [Book I, Ch. 5.] could check excessive population-growth. In the second and subsequent editions, Malthus raised the possibility of moral restraint (marrying late or not at all, coupled with sexual abstinence prior to, and outside of, marriage) as a check on the growth of population (some interpret that he applied this only to the poor).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malthus
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Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau:
'Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau (1816-1882) was a French aristocrat, novelist and man of letters who became famous for developing the racialist theory of the Aryan master race in his book An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-1855). De Gobineau is credited as being the father of modern racial demography.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_de_Gobineau
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Herbert Spencer:
'Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was an English philosopher; prominent classical liberal political theorist; and sociological theorist of the Victorian era. Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. The lifelong bachelor contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, politics, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. He is best known for coining the phrase, "survival of the fittest," which he did in Principles of Biology (1864), after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. This term strongly suggests natural selection, yet as Spencer extended evolution into realms of sociology and ethics, he made use of Lamarckism rather than natural selection.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer
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Richard Hoftstadter:
Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) was an former-Marxist, an American historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. One of the leading public intellectuals of the 1950s, his works include The Age of Reform (1955) and Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), both of which won the Pulitzer Prize - the former for History and the latter for General Non-Fiction - as well as Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915 (1944), The American Political Tradition (1948), and The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). He saw the American Civil War as an example of social struggle where the 'fittest' economic group prevaled. He died aged 54 from leukemia, clearly not 'the fittest'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hofstadter
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State Experiments with Rationalism:
There have been many experiments with rationalism, to dispense with religion in modern human society. These include the Jacobin French Revolution and Marxist USSR and China, etc. The Jacobins tried to eliminate Christianity and replace it with a utopian society based on rationalism, and killed a quarter of a million Christians. Communist USSR was responsible for the Genocide of tens of millions of innocent people, Nazi (National Socialist) Germany. The Soviet communists enforced atheism as the new state 'religion', and persecuted and suppressed both Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, resulting in executions of many Orthodox Christians in Russia and Catholics in Lithuania. Communist countries such as the USSR and China have been just as nationalistic as Nazi Germany was, just as imperialistic (in the name of security and protecting its borders) and just as racist. Communist countries were perhaps not as openly racist, but have been responsible for more genocide than actual extreme right wing regimes. Both the USSR and Nazi Germany were anti-Christian and promoted 'rationalism'. Clearly trying to enforce rationalism results in tyrrany and genocide, and so if one wishes to promote rationalism and atheism, then it is best to do so in the sphere of personal influence, and to respect the opinions and lifestyle choices of others (and vice versa). Every modern attempt at a Utopain rationalist society has resulted in totalitarianism and the terrorisation of the population and extreme violence, and the loss of freedom of choice. This could be compared to some of the major religious inspired violence and state control in historic times, to create a similar 'utopian society', for example, the Crusades, variuos Jihads, the Spanish Inquisition, etc.
www.atheistsunited.org
www.humanism.net
www.atheists.org
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Social Darwinism and Democratic Societies:
Many in the past have argued that modern democratic society protects the weak and thus eliminates the action of natural selection in the population. If we believe Darwinism has been vital in the development of life on this planet and the human species, are we making a grave error in negating the forces of evolution and natural selection in our modern society? Are we actually regressing genetically by allowing 'inferior' genes to spread throughout the population? Who decides which genes are acceptable and which aren't? Can we rule people out by their undesirable physical or social characteristics (by classifying them as divergent from the desired 'norm' or attributing them with an imagined gene)?
There are two ways to achieve this goal:
One way is to make society emulate the 'law of the jungle' more, to be cruel and harsh, so that the 'weak' are naturally 'squeezed' and discouraged from reproducing as much as the 'strong'. This however in most cases favours the rich versus the poor, assuming the rich got there by hard work and superior genetics and intelligent, and that the poor have 'inferior genetics' or are lazy and stupid and deserving of their lot. Or perhaps it is a reflection of the somewhat 'new age' concept of the law of attraction, in that those who are poor 'attracted' poverty and those who are rich 'attracted' wealth (which in some respects is true, but also does not take into account all relevant factors). So the assumption is that a harsh society is fair in some respect. One could argue that a lawless society embodies the law of the jungle, in which case those with the most weapons, strategic positions and access to resources are 'genetically superior' or are stronger rather than either just lucky or more ruthless. The genetically 'superior' are often just as likely to be murdered in lawless societies as the 'weak'. Examples of such societies may include certain parts of West Africa, countries in civil war or with murderous regimes that encourage ethnic cleansing, societies run by gangs or warlords, countries with a high crime rate, and societies with a power vacuum. Clearly where criminals commit crime and are not apprehended, getting the maximum wealth and power with minimal effort, they could be regarded as the strong (that does not imply it was fair!) The bullies are 'strong' and their victims 'weak'. And indeed scammers could be said to be 'strong' as they prey on the innocent and naive, and get rich without doing a proper day's work. Indeed, anyone who can take advantage of another in any way could be considered to be 'strong'. Is the 'law of the jungle' simply an excuse for the more predatory and ruthless and bullies to succeed at everyone else's expense? Is strength in this sense a trait worth promoting regardless of how it is manifested? To make a modern industrialised society more 'harsh' in order to promote natural selection, one would presumably have to remove the 'props' of the weak, ill, old, frail and vulnerable, for example, proper policing or a national health service. Countries such as the USA have never had a National Health Service, unlike much of Europe which does.
The other way is to directly intervene through state sanctioned policies to prevent the 'weak' or 'genetically inferior' from reproducing.
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Eugenics:
The science and philosophy of human intervention to ensure the 'improvement' of human hereditary traits is known as Eugenics, an extension of Social Darwinism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
Eugenics became popular with early anthropologists, scientists, philosophers, authors and novellists of the Edwardian era. In fact, views about cleansing (exterminating) the population of the poor and tramps was not uncommon amongst the intellectuals of the day. There was a great fear amongst the wealthy and well educated of mass education of the poor, the vote for women, and mass consumerism. The 'masses' were often regarded with scorn and contempt. The concept of concentration camps and the gas chamber was actually written about by the English author D.H. Lawrence many years before Hitler ever came to power. Hitler was no doubt influenced by Edwardian Eugenicists.
Eugenics movement was primarily driven by specific Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and national societies, but also to some extent from within the UN. Eugenics was a reflection of the desire of some of the most wealthy and influential industrialists and elite to influence population growth and the 'national human stock', believing that it was their responsibility to do so as they were best qualified on account of their position, intellect and wisdom; and perhaps through a twisted altruistic motivation. This is explored in more detail on the Elite Groups page. The WWF, an organisation founded and headed up by leading eugenicists, could be viewed as a similar interest in influencing government policy but this time concerning the management of animal populations, although the converse principle applies that certain animal species were to be protected (with an interest in 'culling off' unwanted elements from the gene pool in human populations).
One of the themes that can be seen below is that eugenicists sometimes blurred the boundaries between those that they believed should be restricted from breeding for medical reasons and those that they wished to see 'eradicated' or to restrict their breeding as they deemed them 'undesirable' from a social, class or racial context. This blurring of distinctions was evident in the Nazi Eugenics programme.
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Famous Proponents of Eugenics:
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T.H. Huxley
T.H. Huxley, a Freemason, draws parallels between the purpose of Freemasonry to cultivate humanity in a spiritual sense into 'Gods' or 'superhumans' and the similar biological purpose of Eugenics when he wrote: 'Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step, and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which exist, but of those who are ethically the best.'
www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Darwinism_Gnostic_Myth.htm
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H.G. Wells
H.G. Wells was quoted in 1901 as saying: `The swarms of black, brown, dirty-white and yellow people have to go. It is their portion to die out.'
In 1905, Wells is quoted as saying `The extravagant swarms of new births was the essential disaster of the 19th century.'
Wells is accredited as being a freemason, but this is denied by some. His book 'The Inexperienced Ghost' implied an intimate knowledge of Freemasonry. He was a practitioner of the occult.
www.whale.to/b/33.html
Wells is best known for his book War of the Worlds (1898). The Alien tripod illustration by Alvim Corréa below is from the 1906 French edition of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds".
The October 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, read by Orson Welles, and aired over the CBS radio network as a series of news reports, caused mass hysteria in the USA (in the run up to WW2) with people running pannicking in the streets, expecting to see Martian Tripods waiting to kill them. Many people presumably tuned in halfway through and thought they were hearing a news flash/breaking news. Professor Richard J. Hand cites studies by unnamed historians who "calculate[d] that some six million heard the CBS broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and 1.2 million were 'genuinely frightened'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_%28radio%29
In his pamphlet 'The Open Conspiracy: Blueprint for a World Revolution', (1929) the H.G. Wells describes an 'open secret society' consisting of society's leading men operating as a hidden force to secure world resources, reduce population through war and replace the nation state with world dictatorship. Largely because of this pamphlet, he is labelled as an 'Illuminati', 'Illuminati' sympathiser, or 'one worlder'.
www.savethemales.ca/000768.html
http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/wells_h/wells_h.html
H.G. Wells, Julian Huxley and G.P. Wells published 9 books in 3 volumes, first issued as a set of 31 essays, in 1929-30, entitled 'The Science of Life: a summary of contemporary knowledge about life and its possibilities.'
H.G. Wells published a book in 1940 entitled 'The New World Order', which detailed his ideas which he first outlined in 'The Open Conspiracy'. Some excerpts from this book can be found at the link below. How Wells ideas on one world government, management and population control fitted in with his ideas about race and class can be left up to the imagination! Hitler certainly provided some possible solutions.
www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/new_world_order_hgwells.htm
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Irving Fisher
Irving Fisher, the economist, said in his 1912 presidential address to the Eugenics Research Association: "The Nordic race will... vanish or lose its dominance if, in fact, the whole human race does not sink so low as to become the prey, as H. G. Wells images, of some less degenerate animal!'
In 1912, Fisher also became a member of the scientific advisory to the Eugenics Record Office and served as the secretary of the American Eugenics Society. Other members, advisors and heads of the American Eugenics Society included John Harvey Kellogg, J.P. Morgan Jnr and a number of other key industrialists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Fisher
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Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the U.S. 1901 - 1909, and a Freemason, was quoted in 1910 as saying, "we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty, of the good citizen of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world."
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Winston Churchill
In 1910, Winston Churchill lobbied for compulsory sterilisation of the mentally handicapped: "I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed." Winston Churchill first became a Freemason in 1901, and also became a member of the Ancient and Archaeological Order of Druids and the Order of the Garter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill
www.angelfire.com/weird2/obscure2/druid.html
www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2005/09sep/winstondruid.html
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Unity Mitford
Winston Churchill's cousin, Unity Valkyrie Mitford (8 August 1914 - 28 May 1948), was one of the noted Mitford sisters. She was a prominent supporter of fascism and friend of Adolf Hitler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Mitford
In 1932 her elder sister Diana abandoned her husband for an affair with Oswald Mosley who had just founded the British Union of Fascists. She married him in secret in 1936 in Joseph Goebbels’s home in Berlin.
She moved from England to Germany and in 1934 as she was so besotted with Hitler, and competed for his affections with Eva Braun, although Hitler was already 'dating' Eva at this time. Unity was part of Hitler's inner circle. Hitler, being superstituous and obsessed with the occult, liked the fact that Unity's middle name was Valkyrie (c/f Richard Wagner's piece 'Flight of the Valkyries'), that she was conceived in the town of Swastika in Ontario, where her family had gold mines. her grandfather, Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, who was a friend of one of Hitler’s idols, Richard Wagner, and translated the works of another, Houston Stewart Chamberlain.
Unity shot herself in 1939 (failed suicide attempt) when Germany and Britain went to war. It was rumoured she had had Hitler's child, although this is not substantiated with any hard evidence.
www.newstatesman.com/blogs/martin-bright/2007/12/unity-mitford-home-hitler-war
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3042944.ece
Deborah Mitford married Harold Macmillan’s nephew, later the Duke of Devonshire. Jessica Mitford married Winston Churchill’s nephew. Nancy Mitford was related to President John F. Kennedy by marriage.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was a famous composer, director, conductor, essayist and philosopher. His most famous piece was undoubtedly 'Flight of the Valkyries'. Wagner was an extremely prolific writer, authoring hundreds of books, poems, and articles, as well as voluminous correspondence, throughout his life. His writings covered a wide range of topics, including politics, philosophy, and detailed analyses (often self-contradictory) of his own operas. His essay Das Judenthum in der Musik" ("Judaism in Music", 1850) was a polemic directed against Jewish composers in general. In it, he wrote that 'the solution is annihilation'. How this was to be interpreted is a matter of debate. Wagner's music was for many years banned in Israel, even though many of the orchestras enjoyed to play his music, on account of its use by the Nazis in Nazi propaganda.
Friedrich Nietzsche was part of Wagner's inner circle during the early 1870s, and his first published work The Birth of Tragedy proposed Wagner's music as the Dionysian rebirth of European culture in opposition to Apollonian rationalist decadence. Nietzsche broke with Wagner following the first Bayreuth Festival, believing that Wagner's final phase represented a pandering to Christian pieties and a surrender to the new demagogic German Reich. Wagner shared many ideas with Nietzsche about the honour of the Homeric hero, but also believed in a kind of strong and slightly anti-semitic form of Christianity. He however had satisfactory working relationships with Jews. His anti-semitism was clearly not systematic and he displayed elements of strong anti-semitism in some areas but not in others.
Some biographers have asserted that Wagner in his final years came to believe in the racialist philosophy of Arthur de Gobineau, and according to Robert Gutman, this is reflected in the opera Parsifal (written in 1887), but the latter conclusion remains unproven, as has been argued by more recent Wagner biographers (Lucy Beckett etc). Wagner's writings of his last years indicate some interest in Gobineau's idea that Western society was doomed because of miscegenation between "superior" and "inferior" races. However, he does not seem to have subscribed to Gobineau's belief in the superiority of the supposed Germanic or "Nordic race". Wagner showed no significant interest in Gobineau until 1880, when he read Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races.Joseph Goebbels banned Wagner's opera Parsifal in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, due to the perceived pacifistic overtones of the opera.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Stewart_Chamberlain
'Houston Stewart Chamberlain (September 9, 1855 - January 9, 1927) was a British-born author of books on political philosophy, natural science and his posthumous father-in-law Richard Wagner. His two-volume book Die Grundlagen des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century) (1899) became one of the many references for the pan-Germanic movement of the early 20th century, and, later, of Nazi racial philosophy.'
'Wagner's writings on race and his antisemitism reflected some trends of thought in Germany at the end of the 19th century. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, expanded on Gobineau's and Wagner's ideas his 1899 book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, a work proclaiming the superiority of Aryan races, which had a wide circulation and later became required reading for members of the Nazi party. Chamberlain greatly admired Wagner's work and married Wagner's daughter, Eva, becoming a central part of the Bayreuth Circle, and thus contributing to the association of Wagner's name and works with racism and anti-semitism.'
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W.B. Yeats
W.B. Yeats in 1939, whilst explaining the evolutionary mechanism, said: `Since improvements in agriculture and industry are threatening to remove the last check on the multiplication of the ineducable masses ... the better stocks have not been replacing their numbers, while the stupider and less healthy have been.'
Yeats was a member of the Isis-Urania Temple of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Florence Farr, the actress and lover of both Yeats and George Bernard Shaw, was also a member.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200103/ai_n8935971
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George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw said in 1933: `If we desire a certain type of civilisation we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit in.' He is also quoted as saying 'the majority of men at present in Europe have no business to be alive.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw
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D.H. Lawrence
D.H. Lawrence said in 1921: `Three cheers for the inventors of poison gas.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Lawrence
Lawrence also wrote in a letter in 1908, on the subject of racial degeneration and eugenics:
'If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace, with a military band playing softly, and a Cinematograph working brightly, and then I’d go out in back streets and main streets and bring them all in, all the sick ... the maimed; I would lead them gently, and they would smile me a weary thanks ...'
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/mjp/pdf/DarwinForeword.pdf
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T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot is often accredited as being an outspoken proponent of Eugenics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.s._eliot
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Virginia Woolf
In 1915, Virginia Woolf described a walk on which she met 'a long line of imbeciles.' She wrote that 'everyone in that long line was a miserable ineffective shuffling idiotic creature, with no forehead or no chin & and an imbecile grin, or a wild, suspicious stare. It was perfectly horrible. They should certainly be killed.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_woolf
www.almendron.com/tribuna/?p=7177
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John Davison Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller (1839-1937) founded Standard Oil, which at one time controlled 95% of the oil refining business in the United States. The Rockefellers funded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, where eugenics ideology was being refined. The Rockefeller Institute supported Alexis Carrel, an advocate of poison gas and a supporter of Nazi Germany's policies on Eugenics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Davison_Rockefeller
www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap12.html
John D. Rockefeller III (1906-1978) founded the Population Council in 1952.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller_III
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_Council
'Controversially, the [Population] Council has its roots in the eugenics movement. The first president of the Council was a eugenicist appointed by Rockefeller; Frederick Osborn, author of Preface to Eugenics (New York, 1940), leader of the American Eugenics Society, and one of the founding member of the Pioneer Fund. Osborn was vice president or president of the Population Council until 1959. In 1968 he wrote, "Eugenic goals are most likely to be achieved under another name than eugenics."'
Rockefeller money made Alfred Kinsey's sex research possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey
A member of the Rockefeller family is represented at the Bilderberg Group meeting every year.
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Frederick Osborn:
www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/o/osborn.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Osborn
'He was one of the founding members of the American Eugenics Society in 1926, and joined the Galton Institute in 1928, serving as its Secretary in 1931. He played a central role in the 1936 founding of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, a leading demographic research and training center. Osborn was one of the founding trustees of the Pioneer Fund in 1937, a charitable foundation charged with promoting eugenics.'
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Alexis Carrel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Carrel
'In 1935, Carrel published a best-selling book titled L'Homme, cet inconnu (Man, The Unknown) which advocated, in part, that mankind could better itself by following the guidance of an elite group of intellectuals, and by implementing a regime of enforced eugenics.'
'Carrel advocated the use of gas chambers to rid humanity of "inferior stock", thus endorsing the scientific racism discourse. His endorsement of this idea began in the mid-1930s, prior to the Nazi implementation of such practices in Germany. In the 1936 German introduction of his book, at the publishers request, he added the following praise of the Nazi regime which did not appear in the editions in other languages:
"(t)he German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous."
Carrel also wrote:
"(t)he conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to insure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gasses. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts.".
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Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) made his fortune first in the railroad industry, then in the steel industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_carnegie
www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap12.html
'The Carnegie Institution of Washington funded the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, beginning in 1904. This beautiful little outpost of biological research and study hosted the Eugenics Record Office (funded with Harriman money), beginning in 1910. C. B. Davenport was the director of the Cold Spring Harbor lab, and also the director of the Eugenics Record Office. Throughout the century, a number of universities and think-tanks have welcomed and groomed eugenics theorists and leaders. Individuals moved among these institutions as if there were revolving doors between them. The Carnegie Institution of Washington was among these eugenics think-tanks. For example, Robert S. Woodward was president of the Institution from 1904 to 1920, and helped to plan the Second International Congress of Eugenics. Other eugenics activists who went through the Carnegie revolving door included Ellsworth Huntington, Michael Teitelbaum and Howard Newcombe.'
Ellsworth Huntingdon was the President of the Board of Directors of the American Eugenics Society from 1934 to 1938.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Huntington
'In 1952, when the eugenics movement was reorganizing, the Carnegie Institution of Washington helped out. George W. Corner, representing the Carnegie Institution, argued that there was "a great and emergent need for which special weapons are required." The Institute helped to fund research on these "special weapons" - new birth control methods.'
A representative of the Carnegie Institute for International Peace attends the Bilderberg Group meetings most years.
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Henry Ford
www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap12.html
'Henry Ford (1863-1947) was a pioneer in the use of assembly lines, and mass-produced the first inexpensive automobile, the Model T. He and his son Edsel (1893-1943) established the Ford Foundation in 1936. For many years, this was the largest foundation in the world, giving away billions of dollars. For many years, the Ford Foundation supported population control. In the 1970s, Michael Teitelbaum worked quietly on Capitol Hill to shape American population policy (without any public debate or scrutiny); he was supported for part of his career by the Ford Foundation. The foundation's impact on population policy is described at length in John Caldwell's 1986 book, Limiting Population Growth and the Ford Foundation.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
'Ford and Adolf Hitler admired each other's achievements.[29] Adolf Hitler kept a life-size portrait of Ford next to his desk. "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration," Hitler told a Detroit News reporter two years before becoming the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. In July 1938, four months after the German annexation of Austria, Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal awarded by Nazi Germany to foreigners.'
Henry Ford did not support the First and Second World Wars against Germany and claimed to be pacifist.
The Ford Foundation apparently today funds the Bilderberg Group.
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John Harvey Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (1852-1945), a vegetarian, together with his brother Will Keith Kellogg, created corn flakes, a staple of American and European breakfasts for many generations since.
www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap12.html
'Kellogg was on the Advisory Council of the American Eugenics Society from the early days. He founded the Race Betterment Foundation, and was a sponsor of three eugenics conferences.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg
'Kellogg was outspoken on his beliefs on race and segregation, in spite of the fact that he himself adopted a number of black children. In 1906, Kellogg founded - together with Irving Fisher and Charles Davenport - the Race Betterment Foundation, which became a major center of the new eugenics movement in America. Kellogg was in favor of racial segregation and believed that immigrants and non-whites would damage the gene pool.'
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Clarence J. Gamble
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Gamble
www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap12.html
'Clarence J. Gamble used part of the fortune made by Procter & Gamble products (including soap) to finance birth control projects for the poor in many parts of the world. He helped to push through legislation in 1937 legalizing birth control in Puerto Rico; the law specified that birth control material was to be distributed by trained eugenicists. He supported birth control distribution in Appalachia and in rural Japan. A leader in Margaret Sanger's Birth Control Federation, he suggested that they set up a "Negro Project," using black clergy and physicians to promote birth control. He founded the Pathfinder Fund, to promote population control around the world.'
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Francis Galton
Francis Galton, the half cousin of Charles Darwin, and pioneer of finger printing, founded the Eugenics Education Society in London in 1907. This became the Eugenics Society in 1926 (often referred to as the British Eugenics Society). It changed its name to the Galton Institute in 1989. Galton and H.G. Wells are regarded as the founders of Eugenics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton
'Charles Darwin himself gave serious consideration to Galton's work, but thought the ideas of "hereditary improvement" impractical. Aware of weaknesses in his own family, Darwin was sure that families would naturally refuse such selection and wreck the scheme. He thought that even if compulsory registration was the only way to improve the human race, this illiberal idea would be unacceptable, and it would be better to publicize the "principle of inheritance" and let people decide for themselves.[2] In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex of 1882 he described how medical advances meant that the weaker were able to survive and have families, and commented on the effects of this, while cautioning that hard reason should not override sympathy, and considering how other factors might reduce the effect:
"Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. ... We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected."'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
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Julian Huxley
Julian Huxley was a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society, and was Vice-President (1937-1944) and President (1959-1962).
In 1941 in referring to 'the virtual elimination of the few lowest and most degenerate types' rather than the working classes, he wrote that: "The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore... they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilisation.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Huxley
Julian Huxley helped to set up UNESCO and was its first Director General in 1946 (until 1948). He also helped to found the WWF (c/f Prince Bernhard below), as described in the link above.
www.jonesreport.com/articles/060807_enviro_eugenics.html
In 1946, Julian Huxley said 'Even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.'
Julian Huxley was later to acknowledge that biologically distinguishing between people based on 'race' was a flawed practice. To avoid associations with the Nazis, he changed the name of Eugenics in 1957 to Transhumanism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
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Prince Bernhard
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands served as the first President of the WWF (founded by Julian Huxley) from 1962 to 1976. He also founded the Bilderberg Group, and was a former member of the Nazi party and Reiter-SS (despite the populist Nazi party being generally despised by aristocrats and the intellectual elite within Germany) from the mid 1930s onwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_of_Lippe-Biesterfeld
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Prince Philip
HRH Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, was also a President of the WWF from 1981 to 1996. He is quoted as saying 'In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation'.
Prince Philip has a reputation for making insensitive remarks of a somewhat racist and sexist nature. Some are listed below at Wikipedia and make quite amusing reading (laughing at him, not with him!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philip,_Duke_of_Edinburgh#Controversial_remarks
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House of Windsor (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and the Nazis
The House of Windsor has been historically linked to Nazism and the family line comes from Germany.
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/naziroot.htm
The British Royal Family used a German surname Wettin prior to the First World War, but it was changed to the more English sounding name Windsor because of increased anti-German feeling in the general population. The surname arose from Queen Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert, son of Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in February 1840.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wettin
www.royal.gov.uk/OutPut/Page128.asp
'Queen Victoria herself remained a member of the House of Hanover. The only British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was King Edward VII, who reigned for nine years at the beginning of the modern age in the early years of the twentieth century. King George V replaced the German-sounding title with that of Windsor during the First World War. The name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha survived in other European monarchies, including the current Belgian Royal Family and the former monarchies of Portugal and Bulgaria.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountbatten-Windsor
Mountbatten-Windsor is the personal surname of some of the descendants of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh under an ambiguously-worded Order-in-Council issued in 1960. The Mountbatten surname derives from the German town of Battenberg, in Hesse. Prince Louis of Battenberg changed his surname to Mountbatten (its literal English translation) during the First World War at the request of King George V.
How British is the Royal Family in reality?
'Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Leopold Charles Edward George Albert; in German Carl Eduard, Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha 19 July 1884 - 6 March 1954) was the fourth and last reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a duchy in Germany (from 30 July 1900 to 14 November 1918). A male-line grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, he was also a Prince of the United Kingdom and held the title of Duke of Albany. The Duke was a controversial figure in the United Kingdom due to his status as Sovereign Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, part of the German Empire, during World War I. He was deprived of his British peerages, his title of Prince and Royal Highness and his British honours in 1919. In 1918, he was forced to abdicate his ducal throne. He also later joined the German Nazi Party. This caused considerable embarrassment to his only sister, who nevertheless remained loyal to him for the rest of his life, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, her sister-in-law, Queen Mary and their cousin George V.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Edward,_Duke_of_Saxe-Coburg_and_Gotha
Prince Charles Edward, the Duke of Albany, was the cousin to Kaiser Wilhelm, a.k.a. Emperor William II of Germany, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia (pictured below).
Queen Victoria decided that he should become the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and move to Germany at the age of 16 (in 1900), upon the death of the existing Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha who had no direct heirs. He was not particularly keen to do so, but his other two brothers had refused to do so. Queen Victoria wanted to keep this part of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty/inheritance under her control. It was in a sense the final years of the control of Europe by interrelated monarchs and royalty. Charles Edward was also the cousin of the Russian Royal Family.
World War One broke out in 1914, and he was treated with unease by the German population as he was English born. Charles Edward was ordered by the Kaiser to fight for Germany. He wished to avoid fighting the British, so fought on the Eastern front. It was during WWI that the British Royal Family 'rebranded' to avoid hostility from the British people because of their German roots. In July 1917, in an effort to distance his dynasty from its Germanic origins, George V changed the name of British Royal House from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor.
The Russian revolution of 1917 caused Charles much concern, particularly as his Russian Royal cousins had been murdered by the Bolsheviks. After WWI, when Germany became a republic, Duke Charles Edward was stripped of his political power and became a 'citizen'. He watched anxiously at the ensuing power struggles between the extreme left and right wing parties in Germany. On 18 November 1918, the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Gotha deposed the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Five days later, the Duke signed a declaration relinquishing his rights to the throne.
On 28 March 1919, Britain formally removed the Duke's British peerages, the Dukedom of Albany, Earldom of Clarence, and the Barony of Arklow. The Duke and his children also lost their entitlement to the titles of Prince and Princess of the United Kingdom and the styles Royal Highness and Highness. He was banished from England and regarded as a traitor.
The deposed Duke, fearing the rise of Communism in Germany, became associated with various right-wing paramilitary and political organizations. Of these, he became close friends with Adolf Hitler. Hitler promised him a place in his Germany, with political power and a diplomatic role. In 1932, he took part in the creation of the Harzburg Front, through which the Deutschnationale Partei (lit: "German-national party") Conservative Party became associated with the Nazi Party. It was through Charles Edward's endorsement that Hitler's Nazi Party was able to rise to power and ascendency over the many other extreme right wing worker's parties in Germany. He joined the Nazi Party and became a member of the SA (or Brownshirts), rising to the rank of Obergruppenführer. In the picture below, Charles Edward can be seen in the middle, next to Hitler.
Hitler appointed him president of the German Red Cross in 1933, a post which he served until he was captured and arrested by the Allied troops in 1945. Below is a German Red Cross honour stick pin.
He formally joined the Nazi Party in 1935. Charles Edward served as a member of the Reichstag from 1937 to 1945.
Charles Edward's deputy in the German Red Cross was an SS officer. The German Red Cross was a front for the Nazi T4 Eugenics programme, and under Charles Edward's presidency, carried out approximately 100,000 executions of mentally ill and handicapped Germans who were considered undesirable.
A photograph of Dr. Fritz Klein, a former camp doctor who conducted medical experiments on prisoners, stands among corpses in a mass grave. Bergen-Belsen, Germany, after April 15, 1945, is shown below.
During the late 1930s, the Nazis removed all Jews from Coburg, and moved them to concentration camps. Coburg was 'Jew free', a fact that Charles Edward must have been fully aware of.
In 1936, Adolf Hitler nominated Charles Edward as the president of the Anglo-German Friendship Society. His mission was to improve Anglo-German relations and to explore the possibility of a pact between the two countries. He ordered him to start visiting Britain in an official capacity to promote pro-German feeling in Britain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII_of_the_United_Kingdom
Edward, the Duke of Windsor, became King (Edward VIII) of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India from the death of his father, George V (1910-36), on 20 January 1936, until his abdication on 11 December 1936. He abdicated as he wanted to marry an American divorcee (which doesn't seem to be a problem today!) After Edward's abdication he reverted to the style of a son of the sovereign, The Prince Edward, and was created Duke of Windsor on 8 March 1937.
Charles Edward, who attended the funeral of George V in his SA uniform (his English ceremonial robes having been taken away from him), approached the new king, Edward VIII, about the possibility of a pact. Edward VIII was Nazi sympathiser and this was known to Charles Edward. Edward VIII was also a Freemason.
www.ugle.org.uk/masonry/famous-masons.htm
Nothing however came of these talks. Nonetheless, he continued to send Hitler encouraging reports about the strength of pro-German sentiment among the British aristocracy. After the abdication crisis, he played host to the former British king and his wife, by then the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, during their official tour of Germany in 1938. After Edward's abdication, and the crowning of King George VI, Charles Edward had no support within the British Royal Family. King George VI was also a Freemason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_VI_of_the_United_Kingdom
www.ugle.org.uk/masonry/famous-masons.htm
During World War II the Duke of Windsor was at first stationed with the British Military Mission to France, but after private accusations that he was pro-Nazi, was moved to the Bahamas as Governor and Commander-in-Chief. After the war he was never given another official appointment and spent the remainder of his life in retirement.
In 1945, whilst Hitler was hiding in his bunker, he sent a telegram to Charles Edward, who was hiding out in his Castle in Coburg, expressing concern about his friend and that he should not fall into the enemy's hands and be captured. Hitler was renowned for having few if any close friends, except for his pet dog, and perhaps also Charles Edward. Charles Edward stuck by Hitler to the very end. That he was unknowing of the full extent of the Nazi policies towards Jews in this time is clearly absurd. He was anti-semitic and anti-socialist, and associated them both as part of the same problem.
Charles Edward was exhonorated of any war crimes (atrocities) as there was no direct evidence that he knew about the German Red Cross's activities, despite being president of it for 12 years. He was however still imprisoned.
Queen Elizabeth to date (2008) has been on four official state visits to Germany, and despite being effectively head of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (i.e. Windsor) family, has never visited Coburg, and is happy to portray some false image of 'Britishness' and tradition. Is such a denial of this link with the past and such dishonesty appropriate? Why is there such a stigma associated with Germany (pre-Nazism)? There is clearly a great deal of anti-German feeling in Britain still today. Is some apology perhaps appropriate? Is hiding the past and hoping it will go away a useful attitude to have? This betrays a lack of honesty and integrity. Whilst Prince Philip and the Queen are not freemasons, HRH Prince Edward, The Duke of Kent, is the Grand Master of The United Grand Lodge of England, and is the President of the Scout Association of the United Kingdom.
www.ugle.org.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward,_Duke_of_Kent
Please see the Elite Groups page for information relating to The Most Noble Order of the Garter, a chivalrous order headed by the Queen.
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Early Anthropology and Eugenics
Early anthropology was very closely tied to racism and Eugenics. Early anthropologists in fact tried to identify those physical characteristics that identified the 'criminal face', in both men and women, to come up with a 'photofit' that could be used to apprehend potential criminals.Luckily anthropology has evolved somewhat since then.
Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities. Funding was provided by prestigious sources such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Harriman family. Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York. Eugenics' scientific reputation started to tumble in the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin began incorporating eugenic rhetoric into the racial policies of Nazi Germany.
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Types of Eugenics:
There are clearly many forms of Eugenics. One can limit breeding of such persons through prenatal testing and screening, genetic counselling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. However, some regard some of the above techniques as immoral practices.
Indeed, other more direct ways of intervention include forced sterilisation, state-sponsored discrimination and even genocide. Nazism aimed to wipe out those with perceived inferior genes. This included anyone whose physical appearance they did not like or anyone who was a potential political threat, including gypsies, tramps, the mentally ill, homosexuals, the disabled, intellectuals, Jews and 'non-ethnic Germans' - the criteria were often not medically based! In fact, one of the major figures in Germany's Eugenics programme was ironically diagnosed with having Epilepsy. However, because of the large amount of land captured by the Nazis, they were not able to sort through the captive populations and 'nationalised' huge populations as ethnic Germans even though they were not deemed to be of the same quality of stock. Jews were accused of cheating money out of the population, yet the Nazis stole from Jews and murdered them, and gave 'ethnic Germans' their home and businesses. Who was the thief?
Eugenics has been regarded by its proponents as a form of altruism and social responsiblity, to ensure the health, vitality of a population and to reduce human suffering in the long term. There are a few different ways of achieving this goal, involving various degrees of increased short term suffering!
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Existentialists and Social Darwinism:
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Introduction:
'Existentialism is a philosophical movement which posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to it being created for them by deities or authorities or defined for them by philosophical or theological doctrines. It emerged as a movement in twentieth-century literature and philosophy, though it had forerunners in earlier centuries, most notably Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Franz Kafka also described existential themes in their literary works. It took explicit form as a philosophical current in Continental philosophy, first in the work of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers in the 1930s in Germany, and then in the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir in the 1940s and 1950s in France. Their work focused on such themes as "dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment, and nothingness" as fundamental to human existence. Walter Kaufmann described existentialism as "The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life". Although there are some common tendencies amongst "existentialist" thinkers, there are major differences and disagreements among them (most notably the divide between atheistic existentialists like Sartre and theistic existentialists like Tillich); not all of them accept the validity of the term.'
'Emphasizing action, freedom, and decision as fundamental, existentialists oppose themselves to rationalism and positivism. That is, they argue against definitions of human beings as primarily rational. Rather, existentialists look at where people find meaning. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them rather than what is rational. The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the feelings of anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical freedom and our awareness of death. Kierkegaard saw rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter their existential anxiety, their fear of being in the world: "If I can believe that I am rational and everyone else is rational then I have nothing to fear and no reason to feel anxious about being free." Like Kierkegaard, Sartre saw problems with rationality, calling it a form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a world of phenomena - "the other" - that is fundamentally irrational and random. According to Sartre, rationality and other forms of bad faith hinder us from finding meaning in freedom. To try to suppress our feelings of anxiety and dread, we confine ourselves within everyday experience, Sartre asserts, thereby relinquishing our freedom and acquiescing to being possessed in one form or another by "the look" of "the other". In a similar vein, Camus believed that society and religion falsely teach humans that "the other" has order and structure.[4] For Camus, when an individual's "consciousness", longing for order, collides with "the other's" lack of order, a third element is born: "absurdity".'
'The notion of the Absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it. This meaninglessness also encompasses the amorality or "unfairness" of the world. This contrasts with "karmic" ways of thinking in which "bad things don't happen to good people"; to the world, metaphorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good person or a bad thing; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a good person as to a bad person. This contrasts our daily experience where most things appear to us as meaningful, and where good people do indeed, on occasion, receive some sort of "reward" for their goodness. Most existentialist thinkers, however, will maintain that this is not a necessary feature of the world, and that it definitely isn't a property of the world in-itself. Because of the world's absurdity, at any point in time, anything can happen to anyone, and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the Absurd.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism
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Types of Existentialism:
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Atheistic Existentialism:
'Atheistic Existentialism is the form of existentialism most commonly encountered in today's society. What sets it apart from theistic existentialism is that it rejects the notion of a god and his transcendent will that should in some way dictate how we should live. It rejects the notion that there is any "created" meaning to life and the world, and that a leap of faith is required of man in order for him to live an authentic life. In this kind of existentialism, belief in god is often considered a form of Bad Faith.'
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Theistic Existentialism:
'Theistic existentialism is, for the most part, Christian in its outlook, but there have been existentialists of other theological persuasions (like Judaism). The main thing that sets them apart from atheistic existentialists is that they posit the existence of God, and that He is the source of our being. It is generally held that God has designed the world in such a way that we must define our own lives, and each individual is held accountable for his or her own self-definition. God is incomprehensibly paradoxical (this is exemplified in the incarnation of Christ); theism is not rationally justifiable, and belief in God is the ultimate leap of faith.'
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Nihilism:
'Though nihilism isn't existentialism, and existentialism isn't nihilism, these two philosophies seem to have enough in common that people sometimes confuse them. In addition, a sort of nihilistic existentialism does indeed exist, but it isn't as radical as pure nihilism. Another reason why these philosophies are often confused is that Friedrich Nietzsche is a central philosopher in both. What sets existential nihilists apart from pure nihilists is the fact that, while nihilists don't believe in any meaning at all, existential nihilists only believe this in relation to any sort of meaning to life (though this position is implied in "regular" nihilism, and existential nihilists may also subscribe to the full nihilistic view, existential nihilism is a separate view). While other existentialists will allow for meaning in people's lives (that meaning they themselves inject into it), existential nihilists will deny that this meaning is anything but self-deception. Existential nihilists could thus seem to be more pessimistic than the other existentialists, but even here, conclusions vary: Some will claim that the best thing to do is to commit suicide while others will claim that the lack of objective meaning to life means you should just do as you wish - a hedonism of sorts.'
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Criticisms of Existentialism:
'Herbert Marcuse criticized existentialism, especially Sartre's Being and Nothingness, for projecting some features of living in a modern, oppressive society, such as anxiety and meaninglessness, onto the nature of existence itself: "Insofar as Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine, it remains an idealistic doctrine: it hypostatizes specific historical conditions of human existence into ontological and metaphysical characteristics. Existentialism thus becomes part of the very ideology which it attacks, and its radicalism is illusory". Sartre had already responded to some points of the Marxist criticisms of existentialism in his popular lecture Existentialism is a humanism, held in 1946.'
'Roger Scruton claimed, in his book From Descartes to Wittgenstein, that both Heidegger's concept of inauthenticity and Sartre's concept of bad faith were self-inconsistent; both deny any universal moral creed, yet speak of these concepts as if everyone is bound to abide by them. In chapter 18, he writes, "In what sense Sartre is able to 'recommend' the authenticity which consists in the purely self-made morality is unclear. He does recommend it, but, by his own argument, his recommendation can have no objective force."'
'Logical positivists, such as Carnap and Ayer, claim that existentialists frequently become confused over the verb "to be" in their analyses of "being".[11] The verb is prefixed to a predicate and to use the word without any predicate is meaningless. Another claimed source of confusion in the existentialist metaphysical literature is that existentialists try to understand the meaning of the word "nothing" (the negation of existence) by assuming that it must refer to something. Borrowing Kant's argument[12] against the ontological argument for the existence of God, the logical positivists argue that existence is not a property.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivists
'Logical positivism (later and more accurately called logical empiricism) is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world, with a version of rationalism, the idea that our knowledge includes a component that is not derived from observation.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
'In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge that is practical rather than abstract, and asserts that knowledge arises from experience rather than revelation. Empiricism is one view held about how we know things, and so is part of the branch of philosophy called epistemology, which means "theory of knowledge". Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas. In the philosophy of science, empiricism emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Hence, science is considered to be methodologically empirical in nature.'
The most famous empiricist was John Locke, the founder of British empiricism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism
'In epistemology and in its broadest sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" (Lacey 286). In more technical terms it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive" (Bourke 263). Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position "that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge" to the radical position that reason is "the unique path to knowledge" (Audi 771).'
Socrates was arguably the founder of rationalism, influencing Neo-Platonism and Rene Decartes in later centuries.
Existentialism's concept of the Absurd, that no belief systems are solid or absolute, poses a contradiction, as this implies that existentialism must also on some level be a false doctrine or not apply depending on the exact situation or mood. Perhaps there is then a time and place for Existentialism, and to adopt it in its entirety and slavishly would be somehow missing the point?
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Soren Kierkegaard:
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), 'was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard strongly criticized both the Hegelianism of his time, and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Danish church. Much of his work deals with religious themes such as faith in God, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. His early work was written under various pseudonyms who present their own distinctive viewpoints in a complex dialogue. Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of the works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Subsequently, many have interpreted Kierkegaard as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, individualist, etc. Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, Kierkegaard came to be regarded as a highly significant and influential figure in contemporary thought.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard
'Hegelianism is a philosophy developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel which can be summed up by Hegel's "the rational alone is real," which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. His goal was to reduce reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of transcendental idealism.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegelianism
'Christian existentialism relies on three major assumptions drawn from Kierkegaard's understanding of Christianity. The first is that the universe is fundamentally paradoxical, and that the greatest paradox of all is the transcendent union of God and man in the person of Christ. The second concerns having a personal relationship with God that supersedes all prescribed moralities, social structures and communal norms. The third asserts that following social conventions is essentially a personal aesthetic choice made by individuals.
Kierkegaard proposes that each of us must make independent choices that will then comprise our existence. No imposed structures - even Biblical commandments - can alter the responsibility of individuals to seek to please God in whatever personal and paradoxical way God chooses to be pleased. Each individual suffers the anguish of indecision until he makes a leap of faith and commits to a particular choice. Each person is faced with the responsibility of knowing of his own free will and with the fact that a choice, even a wrong choice, must be made in order to live authentically.
Kierkegaard also upholds the idea that every human being exists in one of three spheres (or on planes) of existence, the aesthetic, ethical, and religious. Most people, he observed, live an aesthetic life in which nothing matters but appearances, pleasures, and happiness. It is in accordance with the desires of this sphere that people follow social conventions. Kierkegaard also considered the violation of social conventions for personal reasons (e.g., in the pursuit of fame, reputation for rebelliousness) to be a personal aesthetic choice. A much smaller group are those people who live in the ethical sphere, who do their best to do the right thing and see past the shallow pleasantries and ideas of society. The third and highest sphere is the faith sphere. To be in the faith sphere, Kierkegaard says that one must give the entirety of oneself to God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_existentialism
'One of the major premises of Christian existentialism entails calling the masses back to a more genuine form of Christianity, often identified with some notion of "early Christianity," or the type of Christianity that existed during the first three decades after the Resurrection of Christ in approximately AD 33. With the Edict of Milan, which was issued by Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 313 , Christianity enjoyed a level of popularity among Romans and later among other Europeans. And yet, by the 19th century, Kierkegaard saw that the ultimate meaning of New Testament Christianity (Love) had become perverted. And thus, Christianity appears to have deviated considerably from its original threefold message of grace, humility, and love.
Another major premise of Christian existentialism involves Kierkegaard's conception of God and Love. For the most part, Kierkegaard equates God with Love. Thus when a person engages in the act of loving, he is in effect achieving an aspect of the divine. Kierkegaard also viewed the individual as a necessary synthesis of both finite and infinite elements. Therefore, when an individual does not come to a full realization of his infinite side, he is said to be in despair. For many contemporary Christian theologians, the notion of despair can be viewed as sin. And sin is something that Kierkegaard equated with the losing of one's self, the self being a free spirit that recognizes both the finite and infinite sides of his existence.
A final major premise of Christian existentialism entails the systematic undoing of evil acts. Kierkegaard claimed that once an action has been completed, it should be evaluated in the face of God, asserting that holding oneself up to Divine scrutiny is the only way to judge one's actions. Because actions constitute the manner in which something is deemed good or bad, one must be constantly conscious of the potential consequences of his actions. Kierkegaard believed that the choice for goodness came down to each individual. Unfortunately, most people do not choose. As a result, humanity will continue to relegate itself to self-imposed immaturity, thus living in both stunned apathy and agonizing inertia.'
Kierkegaard believed that Jesus' teachings were indirect in their style, they were aimed at individuals, and often told in parables, in answers to a person's specific question or circumstance. His point is often left unsaid for the purpose of letting the single individual confront the truth on their own. reading of the Bible demands that the reader recognize that he is an existing subject studying the words God communicates to him personally. This is in contrast to looking at a collection of "truths" which are outside and unrelated to the reader. Such a reader is not obligated to follow the commandments as if an external agent is forcing them upon him, but as though they are inside him and guiding him from inside. This is the task Kierkegaard takes up when he asks: "Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor's distance from everyday life-or the learner who should put it to use?" Existentially speaking, the Bible doesn't become an authority in a person's life until they authorize the Bible to be their personal authority.
Kierkegaard no doubt influenced other schools of Christian thought, such as Christian anarchism and progressive Christianity, and many others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism
'Christian anarchism is any of several traditions which combine anarchism with Christianity. Christian anarchists believe that freedom is justified spiritually through the teachings of Jesus. This has caused them to be critical of government and Church authority. Some believe all individuals can directly communicate with God, which negates the need for a system of clergy. Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You is a key text in modern Christian anarchism.'
www.catholicworker.com/ah_anar.htm
www.catholicworker.com
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Friedrich Nietzsche:
FriedrichNietzsche (1844-1900), a German Philosopher, believed in the theory of 'Will to Power', which underlied the motivation behind every human action. This could be interpreted as the need for significance, one of Six Fundamental Human Needs as described in the Psychology section. Perhaps his concept of 'Will to Power' was a response to Schopenhauer's concept of 'Will to Live' as the governing principle of human behaviour. Schopenhauer regarded 'the entire universe and everything in it as driven by a primordial will to live, thus resulting in all creatures' desire to avoid death and to procreate.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche
Nietzsche suggests however that people's main motivation is towards power, with living and survival being only a secondary aim, something necessary to promote one's own self-power. Nietzsche cites examples of combat, warfare and fighting as reflecting both humans' and animals' desire to willingly risk their lives in order to assert their power. Nietzsche took his inspiration from the ancient Greek texts of Homer, where Greek heroes and aristocrats or 'masters' did not merely desire life, but wanted power, glory, and greatness - and often dieing young and in battle in the process.
Nietzsche opposed Utilitarianism, the philosophy that held that all people are motivated by a desire to be happy - something he believed only applied to the 'English'. He also opposed Plato's concept that people ultimately want to achieve unity with the good or, in Christian neo-Platonism, unity with God through Gnosis. In each case, Nietzsche argues that the "will to power" provides a more useful and general explanation of human behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
'Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility, that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome—the ends justify the means. Utility — the good to be maximized — has been defined by various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus sadness or pain), though preference utilitarians like Peter Singer define it as the satisfaction of preferences. It may be described as a life stance with happiness or pleasure as ultimate importance. It can be described by the phrase "the greatest good for the greatest number", though the phrase 'greatest number' gives rise to the problematic mere addition paradox. Utilitarianism can thus be characterized as a quantitative and reductionistic approach to ethics. Utilitarianism can be contrasted with deontological ethics (which disregards the consequences of performing an act, when determining its moral worth) and virtue ethics (which focuses on character), as well as with other varieties of consequentialism. Adherents of these opposing views have extensively criticized the utilitarian view, though utilitarians have been similarly critical of other schools of ethical thought.'
Nietzsche was once close friend with Richard Wagner, but fell out with him and others on account of differences over anti-Semitism. Nietzsche was against anti-Semitism.
Nietzsche was an atheist, and embodied both 'Nihilistic Existentialism' and 'Nihilism' itself. Kierkegaardian was arguably the founder of Existentialism, and Existentialism was from inception, ironically Theistic. Nietzsche took the ideas of Christian Existentialism, and reinterpreted it in an atheistic and Homeric manner. He reduced the 'fundamental human needs' down to one, the 'Power to Will'.
Nietzsche coined the phrase 'God is dead'. He saw the development of science and technology and the trend towards secularisation as effectively undermining theism and Christianity, which had served as a basis for Western society for two thousand years prior. He favoured Perspectivism, the 'death of God' eventually leading to the loss of any universal perspective and any coherent sense of objective truth. Instead, man would increasingly rely on his own multiple, diverse and fluid perspectives. The 'death of God' equally could lead to Nihilism, the belief that nothing has any importance and that life has no purpose.
Nietzsche called himself an 'immoralist' in his work 'Campaign against Morality'. He was very critical of Christianity, Kantianism, and Utilitarianism, the most popular philosophies of the time. Kantianism is defined below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantianism
'Kant's ethics are deontological, revolving entirely around duty rather than emotional feelings or end goals. All actions are performed in accordance with some underlying maxim or principle; it is this that the moral worth of an action is judged according to. Kant's ethics are founded on his view of rationality as the ultimate good and his belief that all people are fundamentally rational beings. This led to the most important part of Kant's ethics, the formulation of the Categorical Imperative, which acts as a test for whether a maxim is good or bad. Simply put, the test is that one must universalize the maxim (imagine that all people acted in this way) and then see if it would still be possible to perform the maxim in the world. For instance, holding the maxim kill anyone who annoys you and applying it universally would result in a world which would soon be devoid of people and without anyone left to kill. Thus holding this maxim is irrational as it ends up being impossible to hold it.'
Nietzsche according to some, did not want to destroy morality, but rather to initiate a re-evaluation of the values of the Judeo-Christian western world. However, his use of the term 'immoralist' perhaps contradicts this. Perhaps this is an example of his gratuitously inflammatory language and desire to offend. Some philosophers and occultists who draw on Nietzsche however interpret this literally.
He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself - a desire in effect to return to the values of Homeric Greece. Nietzsche views the development of Judeo-Christian morality as 'master-slave' morality. Nietzsche presents master-morality as the original system of morality, perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece. Here, value comes about as a contrast between good and bad: wealth, strength, health, and power (the traits of the Homeric hero) being good; the poor, weak, sick, and pathetic (the traits of 'ancient Greek slaves') being seen as bad.
One can see the Homeric values of bravery, vitality, resilience against the odds, magnificence, amongst explorers, commercial divers and soldiers, and indeed anyone who has triumphed against extreme adversity and potential death. Through these experiences and ways of expressing the soul, one can really know oneself, and really appreciating one's life afterwards (assuming one has overcome the post-traumatic stress etc.!)
Neitzsche saw that Slave-morality could only come about as a reaction to master-morality. Nietzsche associates slave-morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions. Here, value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good associated with charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and subservience; evil seen in the cruel, selfish, wealthy, indulgent, and aggressive. Nietzsche sees slave-morality as an ingenious ploy among the slaves and the weak (such as the Jews and Christians dominated by Rome) to overturn the values of their masters and to gain value for themselves: explaining their situation, and at the same time fixing themselves in a slave-like life.
Nietzsche saw the slave-morality as a sociological illness that had overtaken Western Europe - a derivative and resentful value that can only work by condemning others as evil. In Nietzsche's eyes, Christianity exists in a hypocritical state wherein people preach love and kindness but find their joy in condemning and punishing others for pursuing the impulses they themselves are not publicly allowed to act upon. Nietzsche calls for the strong in the world to break their self-imposed chains and assert their own power, health, and vitality upon the world.
Nietzsche's view of the slave-morality of Western Europe was in some respects flawed or limited in its application, as Western Europe, although nominally Christian, had a history of oppression of its citizens, imperialism and empire building, for example, the British, French, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch and also the Italians (attempts at anway under Mussolini!) Perhaps these empires can be seen in terms of the ruling elite, the rich, intellectuals and soldiers as being the 'masters' and the general populus as being the 'slaves'. This doesn't quite fit. Those soldiers going to war, willing to die for glory and significance, and because their enemy was 'subhuman' and 'inferior' were on some level embodying the 'master' morality of Homer. They were prepared to die for significance and 'power'; perhaps 'power' in a 'selfless' sense, a desire to contribute to their cause or society in some manner. The embodiment of Christian values was clearly quite perverted in Western Europe over the last two millennia, with religion and the Bible used as a tool for control (the Bible being available to the population to actually read themselves in their own language only occurring in the 14th Century onwards), displaying certain Master characteristics, with the religious establishment perhaps gratuitously polarising the Master-Slave psychological divide. This could be argued to be no fault of Jesus and his teachings per se.
Need one attribute beliefs to the stereotypical 'master-slave' morality? Need 'master' be good and 'slave' be bad (from Nietzsche's perspective)? Need 'master' be 'bad' and 'slave' be 'good' from a Christian perspective? Clearly these are stereotypes and one has to examine each situation on its own merits - very few people are either 'masters' in every situation or 'slaves' in every situation. Does it have to be all or nothing?
Social Darwinism held that the genetically deformed, weak and sick should be left to die. It could be argued that those who are disabled on account of genetic abnormalities, or develop incurable diseases and conditions, that they are special and gifted, in the sense that they bring out the best in people around them and because of their physical condition in many cases are able to achieve greatness that someone with all their faculties may never both with, e.g. Stephen Hawking. Being deaf or blind in some ways allows one to develop one's other senses more than someone who relies on their sight and hearing more. Having a disposition to being short-sighted could be considered a weakness, but many of the world's greatest thinkers have worn spectacles, e.g. Albert Einstein. This a philosophy that Nietzsche subscribed to, in direct opposition to Social Darwinism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
'Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy addressed the question of artificial selection, but it was built against Darwinian theories of natural selection. His point of view on sickness and health, in particular, opposed him to the concept of biological adaptation, forged by Spencer's "fitness". He criticized both Haeckel, Spencer, and Darwin, sometimes under the same banner. Nietzsche thought that, in specific cases, sickness was necessary and even helpful.'
In 'Human, All Too Human', Friedrich Nietzsche wrote:
'Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it. Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race.'
BlackSpy believes that anyone who has the will and drive to really dig deeply into the health section of this web site, and really have the guts to apply it and the perseverance (the 'balls') to 'never say die' and to 'become magnificent' are in many ways embodying the spirit of Nietzsche's 'Will to Power'; or perhaps in this instance it is more 'Will to Life' and a reflection of 'Survival of the Fitness' - or perhaps those 'weak' that have the tools and wherewithall to become the 'strong', that they were born to be. BlackSpy believes that there are no 'weak' as such, but just that some allow themselves to become that way by conditioning, abusive lifestyles (mentally and health-wise) and environmental toxicological influences.
Nietzsche is quoted as saying 'When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back'. In other words, if you look upon something 'dark', some element of that 'darkness' changes you, depending on the strength of the core tenets of your personality/belief system and what 'attracts' or 'excites' you and why; changing you perhaps forever.
In Nietzsche's most famous novel, Thus Spoke Zarathusia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra
'Copious criticisms of Christianity can be found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in particular Christian values of good and evil and its purported lie of an afterlife. Nietzsche sees the complacency of Christian values as fetters to the achievement of overman as well as on the human spirit. Contrasting sharply with Christianity, Nietzsche praises lust, selfishness, while reproaching the rewarded concepts of pity and love for neighbors.'
Nietzsche was a major influence on Adolf Hitler, although Hitler took selectively from Nietzsche's philosophy, combining it with Social Darwinist ideas and also Aryan Racial ideologies and mysticism, for example, those of Theosophy and Ariosophy, and the Thule Society. This is examined in more detail on the Freemasonry page.
In more modern times, Nietzsche has been a major influence on Neo-Nazi gangs (e.g. Aryan Brotherhood), Satanism, Gnostic Luciferianism and the Left-Hand Path, some of whom have taken Nietzsche's ideas in their entirety and others who have selectively taken from his philosophy and chosen to ignore some of his other ideas. It could be argued that whilst many who follow Nietzsche's philosophy object to the uptake by the Nazis and Neo-Nazis as a perversion of Nietzsche's ideas or as a selective uptake of Nietzsche's ideas with contradictory ideas of other philosophers, they are in many cases doing exactly the same thing. The Nazis adopted some of Nietzsche's philosophies, including the Power to Will, perhaps taking it out of context as a justification for global war and domination, but ignored Nietzsche's vehement anti-racism and anti-eugenics stance. LaVey Satanists who claim to draw on Nietzsche's philosophy of the Power to Will, are also ignoring the fact that Nietzsche was an actual atheist, and did not practice the occult, unlike LaVey Satanists who believe that 'black magic' is consistent with atheistic practice. In addition, Gnostic Luciferians or Bestian Gnostics who are highly influenced by Nietzsche have also neglected the fact that Nietzsche was an atheist and believed that 'God was dead', presumably meaning all Gods in effect, including the Judeo-Christian God. Gnostic Luciferians and Bestian Gnostics in many cases believe in multiple Gods and deities, which hardly consistent with Nietzsche's overall philosophy, even if they believe in the Power to Will. What would Nietzsche think if he could see how his ideas had been interpreted today? BlackSpy imagines that he would be less than impressed that his ideas had been used to promote genocide, race hatred, the occult and polytheism! Nietzsche would have no doubt regarded Satanists and Gnostic Luciferians as just as superstitious as Christians, but at least not embodying the slave-morality. However, there is no reason why one cannot 'pick and mix' from a variety of different philosophies, taking on those ideas that one finds appealing and ignoring others that one does not, within a number of different philosophies, in a somewhat personalised, subjective and syncretic manner. Each to their own!
Issues around concepts of race and identity are examined in more detail on the Identity and Difference page in the Psychology section.
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Morality:
Of course, not all Existentialists are fond of the survival of the fittest philosophy of Social Darwinism and the Nietzsche belief that the strong should express themselves and impose their vitality on the world. For example, in the song 'Choice of Evils', Nick Blinko of Rudimentary Peni writes:
'There is no
right or wrong,
so help the weak,
and fight the strong.
There is no
right or wrong,
but the brute force
of history.'
Clearly Darwinism is just one part of the atheists beliefs about the nature of reason and where we came from. How do atheists feel about the application of Darwinism into our modern societies as described above? Darwinism has clearly been very influencial in modern society and also has been heralded as some atheists as their version of the 'Bible'. However, concepts of evolution, whether literally based on traditional Darwinism or modified concepts of it, do not disprove the existence of God. No scientific discoveries, including those in Quantum Physics and the cutting edge of astronomy have excluded the existence of God. The more the boundaries of physics are pushed, the more contradictions become apparent, and our existing laws and understanding is shown to be inadequate.
Where do morals fit into rationalism? Often atheists enjoy many of the positive benefits of faith (e.g. the values of the Protestant Reformation in modern democracy, capitalism, individualism etc.), but also deny faith has any meaning or benefit. If one is to adopt a purely scientific view of life, what principles do we use to apply to raising children, looking after poor, hungry or suffering. What is the value of individual life when the good of the majority is at stake? What is the value of the majority when the individual is at stake? Science and logic provide no guidance in this area whatsoever. Is caring for others a sign of weakness? Is looking after the weak or poor a Christian or Muslim hangover?
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Atheism vs Theism:
There are clearly zealots, arrogant and intolerant people who have faith and who are atheists. To impose one's will on one's fellow man and to create a utopian society using force and regulation, whether secular or religious, and not respecting people's right to choose, inevitably results in 'hell' on earth.
Does one have to choose either a fixed faith or atheism? Clearly the option is there to think there may be a God, there may not be, I am not sure. Does one have to obey and blindly follow a fixed religion to have faith? Not if you don't want to. Should we regard those with faith as stupid? Or those without faith as morally corrupt and repugnant? We should learn to respect each other's choices and ideas.
The pursuit of the understanding of the universe and the frontiers of science can be enjoyed and furthered by atheists, agnostics, those who are not sure and those with faith. Until we find definite proof of a creator or proof to the contrary, let us remove this pointless bipolar debate from the table and focus on the job at hand! Faith can simply be slotted into scientific theories by the individual to further enhance them, or not, depending on personal preference.
One could argue that in the absense of any direct scientific evidence to suggest that God does or does not exist, then holding a firm position that God exists is just as unscientific and illogical as holding the premise that God definitely does not exist. In strict scientific terms, to be completely rational about the matter would mean that one would have no opinion on the subject whatsoever, and not rule anything out, i.e. Agnosticism. Atheism is in a sense just as irrational as faith. Faith is just that, faith. It does not rely on physical evidence, but on personal experience and the benefits of that faith to affirm to the person that it is something that the person chooses to believe in. Equally atheism is a personal choice, a belief, relying on faith in that idea, and it is equally a faith. A faith of 'no faith'.
It is important to differentiate between 'weak atheism' and 'strong atheism':
Weak atheism is more akin to agnosticism, in that there is no direct evidence for the existence of gods or the 'supernatural' and so whether such things could or could not exist is not relevant or interesting, until some hint of their existence presented itself. It is the belief that there is 'most likely' no god or gods, but that if evidence presented itself, then one might consider the hypothesis. Much like one does not believe that pixies help to boil the kettle when one switches it on. One cannot prove they don't, but until one sees some suggestion that that might be the case, one does not seriously entertain the idea, but instead believes in the measurable. This is a more rationalist perspective.
Strong atheism is the firm belief that there cannot be god or gods, and a refusal to ever believe that there are or could be, regardless of what can be potentially scientifically proven in the future. This belief takes a 'leap of faith' in non-belief in god or gods, and as such is a departure from rationalism, in the same way that spiritual belief or religion is seen as such, also being a 'leap of faith' or relying on 'intuition' in the absence of hard physical facts that can be measured by current scientific means.
Those strong atheists or anyone else for that matter who believes a scientific theory that is yet to be conclusively proven, but which feels right and sensible to the individual (for example, Super-String Theory or Darwin's Theory of Evolution), is hard and indisputable fact, is also taking a leap of faith. In this context, such individuals, scientists as well as strong atheists, could be said to be a 'religion', i.e taking a leap of faith. What we call science fact should be based on measurable results where exceptions can be predicted and explained without error; or how certain one can be about being uncertain (the Uncertainty Principle), where an electron can be in all places at once, but at the same time nowhere, and where the result is affected by the observer.
Agnosticism of course does not deny that gods exist, but neither does it postulate that they do not exist either, because one can never know, and therefore there is little point in having that discussion, but rather to rely on what one can directly see, feel, touch and experience in the physical world.
In actuality, some of the unanswered puzzles in physics do point to some kind of divine or other non tangible intervention being a plausible explanation for the big bang occurring. So one could argue that there is indirect evidence to suggest that there might be a God.
Indeed it could be argued that some Theistic Satanists actually do believe in a creationist theory, either instead of evolution or in addition to evolution. It is just that some believe that the 'creator' was evil as they did not ask to be put into a world of 'suffering'.
The link below quite neatly sums up the main arguments of those who support atheism vs religion and vice versa.
www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/talking_point_atheism.html
Please read elsewhere in the Religion - Other section for more information about how Social Darwinism has influenced Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan and the Left-Hand Path in general.
Please also read the section 'Genesis: Creationism and Evolution' for further discussion of the relationship between religion and science.
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