From Christianity Today comes this fascinating review by Philip Jenkins of a new book on the history of religion and eugenics in the U.S. He points out that some of the implications of eugenics were predicted by Chesterton:
By far the most systematic critique can be found in G. K. Chesterton's Eugenics and Other Evils (1922), almost every line of which clamors for quotation. Chesterton not only demolished the evidence offered to support the new pseudo-science but also brilliantly analyzed its policy consequences. He shrewdly warned how the rhetoric of therapy and social hygiene in practice permitted total discretion to bureaucrats and administrators, eliminating traditional rights, and placing society under an "anarchy from above." Let no one say that the totalitarian appropriation of eugenics came as a complete surprise.
Posted by Ben Brumfield at July 18, 2004 10:05 AM