 
|
 IOLOGY, a science that unites and relates all life on earth, has been subverted in the recent past to provide social and political cover in order to divide human from human, and humans from other animals. While slavery has ancient roots, and slaves had few if any rights compared to freemen, only European enslavement of Africans and the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas was justified by claims that the victims were inherently biologically inferior. The White Man's Burden, a phrase that implies the unquestioned superiority of white men and European civilization, exonerated 18th and 19th Century colonial conquests on grounds of 'fitness to lead the lower orders'. In the 20th Century, genocides in Nazi Germany, Bosnia and Rwanda followed this cruel illogic to murderous ends. The same false claims of inherent superiority justify human domination of 'lesser' animals on spurious grounds, whether based on genetics or Genesis. Despite biological understandings that support the unity of life on earth in all its varied forms, plant and animal, there are those whose thinking leads them to posit inferiority-superiority in human populations based on inherited characteristics. (In their 1994 book, The Bell Curve, Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrenstein suggest lower IQs correlate with socio-economic failure in African Americans. More recently, Gregory Clark in A Farewell to Alms attributes the 'success' of the industrial revolution to superior British genetic adaptability). Such thinking flattens the complexities of decision making and human behavior into sleekly smooth constructs of questionable utility (e.g., IQ) and thus denies the reality of social class struggles: class identification and behavior derive from nurture, not nature; from environment, not genes. Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination. Andrea Dwarkin BAILOUT c. 2008 Obama's in, the Dem's rejoice. Everyone's dreams are given voice. Thousands teared with joy await Our Chicago Hope to inaugurate. Then in the Senate and the House, committees meet and chairmen grouse. Economy's driven in a ditch and Paulson pulls a bait and switch. Bush writes regressive midnight regs Aimed at hoisting private legs; Immune to market contradictions Leave out oversight; up evictions. One nation, split, with justice for none. Unless GM is tossed a loan The free marketplace looks just like a throne. |