Genetics and Eugenics

 

Genetics is scientific study of heredity in general and genes in particular  while eugenics is a term used to refer to the study or belief in there being a possibility to improve the qualities of human species by discouraging people with genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable characteristics (negative eugenics) to reproduce or encouraging reproduction by people presumed to posses inheritable desirable characteristics (positive eugenics). It was the racist pseudoscience hell bent to wipe away all people deemed "unfit,"

Local eugenics groups and societies sprang up across the United States after World War I, with such names as the Race Betterment Foundation. The aftermath of the war left many Americans with a great fear of foreigners and to the US was still in the rise. The American Eugenics was founded in 1923 and swiftly grew to twenty nine chapters across the country. At exhibitions and fairs, word was spread by eugenicists and hosted and “better baby” and “better families” competitions where blue ribbons were awarded to the finest human stoke. Eugenicists not only promoted better breeding but also worked towards prevention of poor breeding or the risk of it.

In political science, political opportunism can be interpreted in various ways generally referring to one or more of the following: The practice of abandoning in reality some crucial political principles, previously held, in the process of trying to increase one’s influence and political power; a political style that aims to increase ones political influence at any price or which seeks to seize every opportunity to extend one’s political influence whenever such opportunity arises. It is also a political tendency that seeks to make political capital from situations with the main aim of gaining more support or influence, instead of improving their political understanding (Welch 45). 

Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in prison for what he considered to be political crimes following his failed revolution in Munich. It is about political opportunism as opposed to genetics. He developed his aggressiveness as a young adult in Vienna before world war one. When Germany lost the war, Hitler is said to have developed extreme nationalism and a deep desire of saving Germany from both external and internal enemies who according to him betrayed it. In his writing, he portrayed his anti capitalism, anti-communism and anti-Semitism views as well as the belief of German nationalism. He claimed to have been fighting against Jewish Marxism but was just a way of amassing political power.

Hitler clamed to have followed American studies and his struggle for a superior race became a crusade for a Master Race. The term “Aryan” or “Germanic” was used in place of "Nordic".  Clearly, the driving force behind racial purity, race science and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler's Nazism. Nazi eugenics would eventually dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live and how they would die.  Nazi doctors became the unseen generals in Hitler's fight against the Jews and the rest of European population deemed inferior. They not only devised the Eugenic formulas but also hand selected the victims of Euthanasia, Mass extermination and sterilization (Weindling 34).

 

His sentiment resulted in holocaust which was a systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of the Jews by the Nazis in 1933. They believed that the Jews were racially inferior and that they deceived tides since they were aliens to the Germans.

In an effort to explain the root cause and provide remedies for world’s problem like war, some scholars solely placed the blame on the internal attributes of a state. In case of the second world they claim internal attributes contributed to the war. Hitler’s difficult childhood experience contributed to his aggressive and non reconciliatory, nature and therefore it endeavored to unite German speaking people, achieve lebensraum in order to gain self sufficiency and dominate the whole of Europe and the world by starting the war (Hitler 56).

Germany was a state with great military capability before World War 1 as well as Prior to the start of world war two. However it possessed inadequate natural resources in comparison with great power surrounding it. Consequently, Germany would always remain highly dependent on outsiders for food and raw materials, unless it expanded. It was a fact that the superior neighbors could jeopardize Germany’s potential military superiority military superiority might becoming self-sustaining imperial real and as a result   cutting trades relations as they begun to do in the early 1930s. The implication of the two realities was that the military potential of Germany had to be used to generate the territorial mass necessary for survival against what World War 1 were referred to as the “economic world empires.”  The strategic obsession of Hitler and the Nazi regime revolved around this dilemma which World War I had not solved and had to find a remedy (Michael 493).  

There are external factors that contributed to world war two apart from Hitler’s opportunism.  Mussolini wanted a fascist-Roman empire in Africa and Mediterranean, while Japan wanted a Nipponese empire in pacific Extending into Australia and China. German, Italy and Japan were Hostile to communism, i.e. USSR, hence a cause for war and vise versa.

The democratic powers could have stopped the war but chose to be passive. The USA was Isolated, Britain was sympathetic to German recovery, while France was reluctant to intervene because she could not rely on Americas and Britain’s support.   The league that was an idealist invention failed to keep peace.

Mein Kampf Serves to remind us that incoherent, bizarre and hateful sentiments can at times win over a sufficient number of people sufficient to sway a country and eventually lead to death of hundreds if not million of people. Hitler’s greatly celebrated a thousand year’s Reich ended after twelve years of barbarity which left thirty million dead. Twelve million died miles away from battlefield, through as a result of mass shooting

 When ones read about Nazism history, it is hard to believe that people in a civilized advanced society could actually be influenced by the kind of arguments that Hitler put forward.  While he may be an extreme case, it is worth remembering that we live in an era where political and religious figures offer own memoirs and tracts in plenty, some of which are almost as strange and illogical, if not as fatal, as Hitler’s renowned tome. Regrettably, they too have religious following. World problems are not only a result of political opportunism but also as result of other factors.  Schilder (1997) focused on the developing Countries. He found strong support for political business cycles, with expansionary policies affecting not only inflation but growth and unemployment as well.  Openness to international trade and agreements with international financial institutions limited the prevalence of political opportunism and political business cycles   in the countries he studied.

 Scholars have suggested remedies for world [problems such as war. Prevention   political opportunism in developing countries especially, has been recommended as well as   the need for International Corporation as far as trade is concerned to in order to achieve economic development and avoid violent conflict. There is also the need establishment of government institutions with checks and balances and that are transparent and accountable.

Brown, Michael.  Causes of the Second World War. Richard Fuller, 2009.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Houghton Mifflin, 1998.

Weindling, Paul. Health, race, and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870-1945. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Welch, David. The Third Reich: politics and propaganda. Routledge, 1993.