Eugenics Rants from
New Sealand
The Chrysalids Pt. 3
A Brief History of Eugenics
It’s so rarely acknowledged that the first half of the 20th century was suffering from an ideological plague: Eugenics. The movement began with good intentions, a social concern about the future of humanity. Was it possible for the human race to purposefully procreate so that future generations were healthier and more intelligent? Yes. Despite their original intentions, the Eugenics Movement quickly degraded into an elitist and racist endeavor. It’s first proponents abandoned ship as it degenerated.
By the 1920’s, Eugenics became an upper classes fad in the United States. It was endorsed by the same women who had just marched for Suffrage, the motivation behind the invention of Birth Control, and the incentive for more heinous American inventions like the gas chamber. Unsurprisingly the Nazi’s were upheld by Americans as the quintessence of Eugenics, that is, until the end of WWII. (This elite and academic support is often conveniently omitted from the history books regarding the US involvement in the war.) Shaken from their fervor by Germany’s defeat and the ensuing change in public perception, Eugenics lay dormant for decades.
The Woman From Sealand's Eugenics Propaganda
Written during a time when it was clear any campaigns “to improve the genetics of mankind” were an avenue to a novel brand of evil, Wyndham does not shy away from presenting Eugenics philosophy through the rants of the Woman from Sealand.
1929 Indiana State Fair Better Babies Contest
“But we do know that we [the people of Sealand] can make a better world than the Old People did…They were only ingenious half-humans, little better than savages…”
As Petra, Rosalind, and David make their way to the Fringes, the Woman from Sealand (WFS) lectures them about the telepaths genetic superiority. She perceives the telepaths as the carefully bred, next rung in human evolution. An ubermensch of sorts. She explains some survivors of Tribulation presented with an anomaly on the secluded island of Sealand. Those “thought-shape-makers” had children with others like them until they outnumber “normal” people.
Newspaper Clipping
“They would have bred with the carelessness of animals until they had reduced themselves to poverty and misery, and ultimately to starvation and barbarism.”
The WFS presents a sentiment that’s copied from the Eugenics playbook. The belief that humanity would “breed” itself to poverty, misery, and starvation is one of the reasons the Eugenics movement garnished such widespread popularity. No one wants their grandchildren to live in such conditions. Eugenicists claimed the solution was as easy as restricting the reproduction of the inferior. If the less educated and the poor should be convinced to have fewer children so the descendants of the “fittest” could have better access to Earth’s limited resources.
1912 NY Daily Tribune Eugenics Article
“We have a world to conquer: they have only a lost cause to lose.”
She expressed that letting the remaining Old People would only be prolonging the inevitable. The non-telepaths needed to be eradicated, exterminated, to make way for their improved race. She further proves she really believes this when she releases an advanced “weapon”; the glistening web-like material that crushes and suffocates all that it covers. It kills everyone on the battleground.
Birth Control Review and Eugenics Articles
As they fly away from the newly formed graveyard, the WFS dismisses their sorrow at witnessing so much death:
“Your minds are confused by your ties and your upbringing: you are still half-thinking of them as the same kind as yourselves.”
Escalation to genocide was a natural progression for the Eugenics movement as well. Many of the major catastrophes of the early 1900s came about as a result of this brand of thinking, from the concentration camps of the Third Reich to the lesser known genocide of South West Africa.
In recent decades, Eugenics is creeping back into Western culture. Examples are everywhere. Designer Babies. Rampant population decline. The conviction that having kids is bad for the environment. I can only hope that we will listen to the warnings in literature; the glaring examples of how the pursuit of “genetic superiority” will only lead to heinous crimes against humanity in recent history.