Saturday, October 14, 2017

Hate Mail

I am aware of Robert Bannister's revisionist and seriously wrong idea that Darwinism and social Darwinism are not equivalent and claiming that Darwin and his closest associates were not racists.  I think one of the problems is that the old regime of pre-internet scholarship which could more easily assert an ideological agenda as scholarship is running into the problem of primary documentation that gives away their game being freely available and easily found.  The post-war revisionist Charles Darwin is a construct that depended on the unavailability and even obscurity of that documentation but that's over and done with. 

The first idea is, as I have had to point out over and over again, not only contradicted by no one less than Charles Darwin, himself, when he explicitly said, in HIS 5th edition of On the Origin of Species he said that Natural Selection was the same thing as Survival of the Fittest and that he repeatedly asserted that natural selection was at work in human societies and in human institutions in The Descent of Man and in his correspondence, going so far as to express opposition to such ideas as equal pay and organized labor as a hindrance of his struggle for existence.  That is enough to dispel anything claiming otherwise.   His racism is also on full display all through The Descent of Man and in his correspondence, any claims to the contrary by any scholar of the subject is, in my opinion, a discreditable distortion for clearly ideological purposes.   The example you sent me, of Bannister claiming that the infamously racist essay of Thomas Huxley was not racist is absurd and clearly obvious to anyone who read it. 

Not only that but it is also disconfirmed in the understanding of Darwin's closest colleagues, his children and in other people who knew the man as well as the next several generations of Darwinists who never knew him but certainly knew his work, it is also disconfirmed by many of his critics who, as well, perhaps even more so, did a close reading of his scientific writing and his other written legacy.  It is certainly disproved in the Darwinian character of eugenics, something whose origin in Galton's and Schallmeyer's reading of On the Origin of Species we know, beyond question, by their own assertions and that Darwin agreed with eugenics by his own written approval sent to Galton on the publication of Hereditary Genius and his citations in The Descent of Man praising that work, the two articles in Macmillan's Magazine which Galton marked as his first eugenics publication as reliable science in The Descent of Man.  From Francis Darwin, Charles' son and the first collector of his correspondence,  we have confirmation that he supported George Darwin's very early eugenics proposals published in a magazine article calling for the legal dissolution of marriages - even against the will of those so married - in the event of a mental illness in one of the partners, even if such a person were held to have recovered from it.   We also have Leonard Darwin's assertions that his eugenics activity was something his father would have approved of and that he was continuing his father's work in it. 

Bannister can claim many things, as any present day scholar can, he and they can't, however, claim to have superior knowledge of what Charles Darwin thought as compared to people who knew him intimately, even his own children.   Nothing he claims can reasonably be said to overturn what they said, nothing short of Charles Darwin, himself, contradicting their claims, in writing.   That record will stand as long as the book and articles and letters written by Charles Darwin, Galton, Haeckel, Huxley, Francis, George and Leonard Darwin, etc. exist.  And all of that evidence is fully available now, online, where it can be known through a fairly simple online search.  

The cover up of Darwinism's relation with eugenics, scientific racism and social Darwinism that was mounted by academics in the wake of the reaction against crimes of the Nazis and English speaking eugenicists is over, for good.   You don't have to "cherry pick" or "quote mine" or depend on secondary sources and tertiary and lower junk to make that case, it is best made by a full reading of the original source material which is almost all available online.  The pre-internet cover-up of that kind is over in so far as anyone wants to honestly know the truth about it.

Again, as I have said recently, I could fill this short piece with citations and links so that virtually every word of it would how up red on my blog.  Perhaps it's time for me to do another comprehensive index of the pieces I've written on this topic, each of them with citations and links to primary documentation of what I said, but there are so many of them.   I'm absolutely certain on this, you can be when you find the exact word confirming that in Darwin's own writing and that of those he cited as having the reliability of science. 

31 comments:

  1. The example of the Nazis made us run away from a lot of this. Bill Moyers has an interview at his website with an historian who has found the transcripts of the meetings where top Nazi lawyers looked to American law on how to discriminate on race, especially bans on mixed race marriages. When those laws fell in '68, they did so without a whimper. Nobody liked the association any more. And it's clear, as the interview says, the Nazis were getting their arguments from Darwin.

    But again, we've worked hard to break the connection between our own past, Darwin, and Nazism. Truth hurts, ya know.

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    1. That's an interesting article, I hope I have time to look up the things cited. Once we have a killing frost or I think I've got enough food put by.

      As I pointed out from that Nazi propaganda film, Das Erbe, literally every argument for the struggle to the death as the basis of life was taken from Darwin, every one of them. Apparently Simels thinks he knows more about what Charles Darwin thought than his own son, Leonard.

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  2. A new documentary on the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939.

    https://vimeo.com/237489146

    Of course, you simple shithead, this was all about Charles Darwin, not anti-Semitism.

    My parents told me about this event for years when I was a kid. It's funny -- the name Charles Darwin never came up once.

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    1. It's not my fault if your parents, you or the producers of the documentary didn't read Darwin, Haeckel, .... Ploetz, Fisher, Lenz, Rudolph Hess, etc. and were ignorant of the fact that Nazi eugenics, as all eugenics, is based firmly on the theory of natural selection.

      I don't choose to remain ignorant as you do.

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  3. Anything to get religion off the hook for the Holocaust.

    You're not fooling anybody, McCarthy.

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    1. Oh, I'm sure all of those religious Jews murdered in it will be glad that you think they caused their own deaths. Not to mention such Jews who were Catholics, as St. Edith Stein, and Jews who had either converted to other religions.

      For you, of course, the non-Jewish millions murdered by the Nazis count as nothing, including many millions of Christians, Catholics, Lutherans, etc. Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. I expect you to now make a joke about Jehovah's Witnesses, you are such an asshole.

      "National Socialism is nothing but applied biology" Rudolph Hess. And that biology was Darwinian natural selection.

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  4. THE INFAMOUS PRO-CHARLES DARWIN RALLY in 1939!!!

    https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/american-nazi-organization-rally-madison-square-garden-1939/

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    1. If you knew anything about history, Stupy, you would know that the permission to form the precursor of German American Bund, which organized said Nazi rally, was given by Rudolph Hess, the guy who said that Nazism was applied biology.

      More telling is that the Darwinist, eugenicist and scientific racist, Charles Davenport, was in direct contact with Nazi scientists right up into the start of WWII.

      I might, if I have time, research to see what I can find of the claims of the German American Bund in this regard, though I'll need to buy a new nose clip, mine wore out while wading into your spewage.

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  5. "Oh, I'm sure all of those religious Jews murdered in it will be glad that you think they caused their own deaths."

    You're not just a bigot, you're completely insane. Seek help.

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    1. You're the one who said that the Holocaust was the fault of religion, I was just pointing out a logical conclusion of your claim.

      You're like those numbskulls at Eschaton who, the night of his murder, blamed the death of Dr. George Tiller, on Christianity, even as his blood was on the floor of his Reformed Lutheran Church where he, as an usher, was apparently guilty of his own murder

      You guys have a lot more in common with Nazis than you'd ever want anyone to point out, but I just did.

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    2. Given that you continue to deny the centrality of anti-Semitism to the Holocaust, it's beyond obscene that you're calling anybody else a Nazi.

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    3. How stupid is that accusation? Here's something from The Jewish Virtual Encyclopedia.

      Non-Jewish Holocaust Victims

      Although Jews were the primary victims of the Nazi's evil, many other groups were targetted based on both racial and political grounds. Other groups singled out by the Nazis included LGBTQ individuals, the physically and mentally disabled, Roma (gypsies), Poles and other Slavic peoples, Jehovah's Witnesses, and members of political opposition groups. However tragic, these non-Jewish victims are typically not considered victims of the Holocaust. According to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, “By the 1950s, the English term Holocaust came to be employed as the term for the murder of the Jews in Europe by the Nazis. Although the term is sometimes used with reference to the murder of other groups by the Nazis, strictly speaking, those groups do not belong under the heading of the Holocaust, nor are they included in the generally accepted statistic of six million victims of the Holocaust.”

      Why Did Hitler Kill 11 Million People?

      First we need to examine Hitler’s egocentric and maniac ideology. Hitler, who was Chancellor of Germany during the Holocaust, came to power in 1933 when Germany was experiencing severe economic hardship. Hitler promised the Germans that he would bring them prosperity and that his military actions would restore Germany to a position of power in Europe.

      Hitler had a vision of a Master Race of Aryans that would control Europe. He used very powerful propaganda techniques to convince not only the German people, but countless others, that if they eliminated the people who stood in their way and the degenerates and racially inferior, they - the great Germans would prosper.

      Neighboring Poland - The First Target: “All Poles will disappear from the world.... It is essential that the great German people should consider it as its major task to destroy all Poles.” Heinrich Himmler

      It goes on.

      "The Holocaust" is obviously anti-Semitic as it was the attempt to murder all Jews. But Hitler had plans to kill a lot more people and was embarked on those murders at the same time. anti-Semitism wasn't "central" to the Nazi plans to murder all Poles, Roma, disabled people, gay men, etc.

      What you don't like is that I'm not going to do what you do, pretend those peoples lives didn't matter. I've pointed out any number of times that you think like a Nazi does. They only cared about "Aryans" you only care about the group you belong to. Caring about everyone is anti-Nazi thinking and its what I prefer to do.

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    4. "Other groups singled out by the Nazis included LGBTQ individuals, the physically and mentally disabled, Roma (gypsies), Poles and other Slavic peoples, Jehovah's Witnesses, "

      The Holocaust was directed at Jehovah's Witnesses?

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    5. Well, it wasn't LGBTQ people who were targeted by the Nazis, it was gay German men, and obviously, you don't care about any of those groups.

      I have pointed out before that you are, at best, semi-literate. I'd point out where I addressed the issue of what is called "the Holocaust" and that it specifically concentrates on the Jewish genocide, as the Jewish Virtual Encyclopedia pointed out BEFORE they went on to talk about other people targeted for extermination by the Nazis.


      You go on thinking like a Nazi if you want to but don't expect me to join in with you. I think it's disgusting.

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  6. ""National Socialism is nothing but applied biology" Rudolph Hess. "


    "Anti-Semitism is nothing but somebody who doesn't know anything about that rat bastard Charles Darwin's opinion." -- Anthony McCarthy

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    1. Inventing quotes, something you have in common with the Republican fascists.

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  7. ""The Holocaust" is obviously anti-Semitic as it was the attempt to murder all Jews."

    Mighty white of you to admit it, Sparkles.

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    1. Stupy, I wonder if someone could count how many times you've used that line how many dozens it's been this past month.

      I know the meaning of words is something you have only slightly more familiarity with than the nature of the truth but, no, it was accurate of me.

      You are an idiot.

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  8. Simels is proof of the adage "You can't fix stupid."

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  9. Oh, blow it out your ass, you pompous putz.

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    1. You know, since nothing you said here has ever risen above that level, you should make that your new buzz phrase, it would save you time and you'd have fewer words to fail you.

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  10. Still claiming this Nazi rally in NYC in 1939 was about Darwin rather than the Jews?

    https://fieldofvision.org/a-night-at-the-garden

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    1. Where did I make that claim, Stupy? Give me my words having said that.

      You know, dopey, I don't do history according to documentary. Documentary films are one of the less reliable forms for transmitting history because the editing of the record is so much more necessarily drastic than a text presentation needs to be.

      You're the one who said I said it, I never said it. However, I suspect I probably know more about the background and the event than you got from your attention deficient viewing of this movie and, perhaps, your having heard some family lore about it, though I doubt that part of it.

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  11. "perhaps, your having heard some family lore about it, though I doubt that part of it. "

    Every Jew of my generation heard about it from their parents, you ignoramus. For some reason, our parents took the whole event somewhat personally.

    Incidentally, that documentary is essentially the surviving raw newsreel footage arranged sequentially. Kind of like the visual equivalent of a text.

    Of course, What you know about documentaries is precisely what you know about Jews, the Beatles, straight boys, girls and comedy, i.e. nicht.

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    1. Uh, dopey, a. I don't care if it's the rawest news footage arranged in second by second precision, The German American Bund and the other associated groups that mounted that atrocity weren't a one-night phenomenon, much of what they did they did in print and you can only access that by doing what you're so loathe to do, READ IT. Newreels are no substitute for text except to those who don't read much text and that's why their knowledge is as inadequate as yours is.

      I would have to disparage your parents to give an adequate reaction to your first claim and I don't wish to do that, how you turned out might not be their fault. I've known Jews of your generation who didn't know about the war in Europe, though not many of them and those from California. It's remarkable how it didn't make all that much of an impression on the commies of City College and other area institutions of higher learning Especially the Stalinists who were about to go into their "we can do business with Hitler" phase during that rally, many of whom were Jewish. I'll grant you that the Trots who turned into neo-cons at least escaped that degrading exercise.

      I'm all for banning, totally, the ability of Nazis to spread their propaganda, organize, meet, etc. based on their history of mass murder, oppression and opposition to democracy, how about you? You ready to say the ACLU is full of shit on those issues?

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    2. Oh, and if you think I didn't notice that you didn't back up your lie about me having said what you claimed I did, I noticed.

      Back it up Simps, you liar.

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  12. Oh good grief, Sparkles. Here's the deal. Every time you gas on about Darwin and the Nazis -- and if we can agree on anything, it's that you've done that literally on countless occasions -- you're explicitly denying the centrality of the Jews and Christian Anti-Semitism to the Holocaust. That includes your dismissal of the Bund rally documentary this weekend.

    There's a word for that kind of bullshit, and "disingenuous" doesn't begin to cover it.

    Oh -- and this one --
    "I've known Jews of your generation who didn't know about the war in Europe" --

    is not just the biggest whopper you've ever told, but the most transparently stupid one.

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    1. The one who comes to mind was a voice major, I can imagine there are any number of theater majors who would be ignorant of that, look at what else you're ignorant of.

      A. I didn't "dismiss the Bund rally documentary" though what makes that so friggin' sacred? There's another Nazi rally movie that I guess you'd consider sacred on the same basis, I said that movies are a really shitty way to learn about history. You know Riefenstahl defended "Triumph of the Will" on that basis, what makes movies so attractive to you, that they're all about images and not ideas.

      The Nazis murdered many people for practicing Christianity, they never murdered anyone for being an atheist.

      You are a modern day atheist Know Nothing.

      You know, Simps, someday the sheer repetition of the experience of kicking your stupid ass will wear out and I'll never post one of your lies or address them again. Enjoy your masochistic pleasure while it lasts.

      Simphoser syndrome.

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  13. "I'm all for banning, totally, the ability of Nazis to spread their propaganda, organize, meet, etc. based on their history of mass murder, oppression and opposition to democracy, how about you? You ready to say the ACLU is full of shit on those issues? "

    Of course. There's no absolute right to free speech, which is why you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. The Constitution isn't a suicide pact.

    Who the fuck doesn't already know that? So stop your moral preening -- based on your anti-Semitism, you don't remotely have the authority to cop superior attitudes.

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    1. Answer the question, Stupy, I'm for not only banning Nazims but crushing it out of existence, you're too chicken to take that position.

      I wish you had money, I'd sue your lying ass off.

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  14. Stupy, I count more than a half dozen stupid attempts by you to post stupid comments that are going to go to the spam file, they're too stupid to even play with. Some of them just more proof that you don't care at all about millions of people killed by the Nazis, if "Holocaust" hadn't been invented as a term exclusively for the Jewish victims of the Nazis, you'd be a Holocaust denier. As it is, you're sort of like the Holocaust denier that might, maybe, will admit the Nazis killed some people, just not 6 million, which, in itself leaves out millions. You think like a Nazi thinks.

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