Eugenics and Other Evils

By: G. K. Chesterton

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

During the first three decades of the 20th century, eugenics, the scientific control of human breeding, was a popular cause within enlightened and progressive segments of the English-speaking world. The New York Times eagerly supported it, gushing about the wonderful "new science." Prominent scientists, such as the plant biologist Luther Burbank, were among its most enthusiastic supporters. And the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations generously funded eugenic research intended to distinguish the "fit" from the "unfit."

This prophetic volume counters the intellectual nihilism of Nietzsche, while simultaneously rebuking Western notions of progress - biological or otherwise. Chesterton expands his criticism of eugenics into what he calls "a more general criticism of the modern craze for scientific officialism and strict social organization."

Public Domain (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Eugenics at it's midpoint

A logical and philosophical argument against Eugenics. I found this work valuable and relative to where the US political social structure is heading, or at, today; c.2022

Surprisingly Relevant

Although Chesterton is riddled with some of the flaws of his time - especially in his perspective on other races - in most other respects he is filled with wisdom and addresses a philosophy which still threatens us today. Great performance as well.

A still relevant topic in the current year

While Chesterton suffers from some from being very much a man of his time and place, he still lays out eloquent and well-reasoned arguments for his rallying against eugenics and other social ills.

Prescient thoughts and logic

I tend to appreciate Chesterton’s thinking and really enjoy his fiction. This work is a wonderful insight into the thoughts and arguments against both early capitalism and early socialism. Interestingly, while I often hear Chesterton quotes from the political right, he’s no friendlier to the capitalist than to the Marxist. Of all his books this does highlight the problematic way in which Chesterton addresses ethnicity and race. While I don’t view him as outright anti-Semitic or racist as some do, he certainly is at best a product of his time. Granted that, the book’s primary logic about the oppression of the poor and disenfranchised by the rich, is apt for our world and the turmoil therein.

Remarkably relevant

It always takes me a while to absorb any GKC writings. He was brilliant and witty, but his style of writing is very different than most of today's writers. I appreciate his sharp criticism of eugenics and socialism. This book was published in 1922 when eugenics was popular and promoted by many elites, but before Hitler's widespread practice of the philosophy.

While the book is 100 years old, it remains relevant.

A Book for Our Times

This book was written just over a hundred years ago - but I found it frighteningly relevant!

Very insightful and incisive and revealing

Just a thin was a genius but he did not understand some things Especially bout Calvinism

Anarchy from Above

While some details have changed in the century since this book first appeared—for example, rather than oppressing the poor with low wages, we now use subsidies—the main thesis stands as true as ever. We moderns may not call it eugenics, but we still dispose of our unwanted in the most up-to-date, scientifically approved manner. It’s just one facet of what Chesterton calls “anarchy from above”:

“Now it is plain that this sort of chaos can possess the powers that rule a society as easily as the society so ruled. And…it is the powers that rule who are chiefly possessed by it—who are truly possessed by devils. The phrase, in its sound old psychological sense, is not too strong. The State has suddenly and quietly gone mad. It is talking nonsense; and it can't stop.”

Yet for all his dire analysis, Chesterton can still make you laugh out loud – a sure sign of his profound sanity. As he says, “We have to be flippant about these things, as the only alternative to being rather fierce.” To reviewers who want to peg him as liberal or conservative, I can only say he was Catholic, and so able to take the best from both sides (no doubt an essential source of his sanity). As with The Everlasting Man, Derek Perkins' delivery suits Chesterton’s style to perfection.

Note: For an historian’s account of the eugenics movement, there’s no better picture that Richard Overy’s The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain Between the Wars.

Good

The information in this book was mind blowing give it 4stars because I didn’t feel like the author was being really truthful

Never more timely

If you don't know the history of the Eugenics movement, and how it swept through academia more than 100 years ago, snaring even Karl Pearson into promoting the idea of Ubermensch, you won't find a funnier introduction to an idea that killed 100 million people than this book.
To fully understand the irony of the current wave of racism, you really need to start with that silly syphilitic Nietzsche, and work your way through Hitler and Rand to our current little titans.
Or, you could read this book. Sort of the Cliff Notes to the devolution of a stupid idea. Clear thinking about how evil people can be when their self-serving biases make them think they are doing good. With jokes.