Thursday, April 10, 2008

Chesterton on Eugenics

I love G.K. Chesterton.  Apart from his popery, that is.  

He has a great paper entitled "Eugenics and Other Evils" where he takes to task the new social Darwinists of his time and the initiation of England as a Eugenic State.  I'm not sure what year it was written, but it's before the World Wars.  He's quite insightful and sees where that mess is headed.  

One of my favorite descriptions is where he is describing what has occurred to our system of law.  All laws have been "flattened out" to cover nearly everything.  He says the problem with modern child abuse laws is that they have made Herod's act of the Slaughter of the Innocents on the same level as Mary and Joseph's act of leaving Jesus behind at the temple.  Reading today about the attempt (once again) to pass anti-spanking legislation in California, the point really made itself clear!

I haven't finished the article yet, but I can say more later... 

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