I suspect "atavism" was all over the place in the pulps of the 1920s or so, when there was a lot of fussing about supposed racial degeneration especially among progressives.

This is from an essay to be published eventually at the Darkly Bright site:


Contraception propagandist Marie Stopes latched on to the potential of this theme. “’The way to rear an imperial race,’” she said in 1930, was to permit only some people to have children (p. 98). The norm in Christian society, in which a man left his parents and was joined to his wife, and they became one flesh and had children, evidently amounted, in Stopes’s view, to “’race suicide’” (p. 99). Such ideas were not new in 1930, but had been on the boil for a decade. Anxiety about racial degeneration in whites due to supposedly transmissible tendencies to blindness, deafness, epilepsy, etc. energized the campaign for government policy favoring eugenics legislation.

These famous progressives were all eugenicists: Stopes, Margaret Sanger, Julian Huxley, Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes, the sexologist Havelock Ellis, H. G. Wells (“those swarms of blacks, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency… will have to go”), and George Bernard Shaw (“The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man”).

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I suspect "atavism" was all over the place in the
> pulps of the 1920s or so, when there was a lot of
> fussing about supposed racial degeneration
> especially among progressives.
>
> This is from an essay to be published eventually
> at the Darkly Bright site:
>
>
> Contraception propagandist Marie Stopes latched on
> to the potential of this theme. “’The way to
> rear an imperial race,’” she said in 1930, was
> to permit only some people to have children (p.
> 98). The norm in Christian society, in which a
> man left his parents and was joined to his wife,
> and they became one flesh and had children,
> evidently amounted, in Stopes’s view, to
> “’race suicide’” (p. 99). Such ideas were
> not new in 1930, but had been on the boil for a
> decade. Anxiety about racial degeneration in
> whites due to supposedly transmissible tendencies
> to blindness, deafness, epilepsy, etc. energized
> the campaign for government policy favoring
> eugenics legislation.
>
> These famous progressives were all eugenicists:
> Stopes, Margaret Sanger, Julian Huxley, Bertrand
> Russell, John Maynard Keynes, the sexologist
> Havelock Ellis, H. G. Wells (“those swarms of
> blacks, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow
> people, who do not come into the new needs of
> efficiency… will have to go”), and George
> Bernard Shaw (“The only fundamental and possible
> socialism is the socialisation of the selective
> breeding of man”).

I'm much less concerned about any socio-political aspects of Howard. It's possible to make arguments in favor of social Darwinism and eugenics. While these positions are to me personally repugnant, if any given society decided that it wanted some heritable characteristics as a very high priority, rigid eugenics would deliver it. But most societies today do not want this as a priority.

What really troubles me about Howard is much more personal, I think. Again, he revels in the idea of all those actions needed to assure racial purity. It's one thing the understand what that entails in practice, entirely another thing to feel smugly superior about it.

I mean, ultimately, on reflection, one might decide that eugenics would yield results that could be seen as positive by most of society, but in accepting that, feel about eugenic policies the same as one would feel about euthanizing a terminally ill household pet.

So it's really Howard's personality, as he chooses to reveal it, rather than his favored social views.

I think he greatly misunderstands the tone of Nietzsche. Nietzsche was a flamboyant writer. He adopts a godlike tone as a narrative device. The immature will interpret this as a personal position of superiority and hence duty. Which, because they perceive that it endorses their personal existence, jump to it like ants to honey.

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~