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To: Shalom Israel
(for the record, I think it's downright nonsense, if not deliberate deceit, to link Hitler's crimes to either Darwin or Christianity. )

"Mostly agree. However, I would note that it's the naturaly reaction of a fascist, on considering evolution, to decide it's a good idea to help it along."

The word 'Evolution' and its image were good tools to use if you were trying to get citizens to go along with any political change. That is, of course, until the late 1940s, at which time "consumers" of political ideology (citizens of countries) started linking that word to Nazism and Communism. That these ideologies happened to be fascist was, I think, largely a matter of different causes (German academic philosophy, way more than British biological research). The appeal of evolution for them was not really that it said much supporting fascism, but that it said a lot supporting the vague idea of "change is progress".

Look at it as marketing. The people behind Communism as Nazism obviously knew jack about evolution, being totally incapable of keeping their pet systems running beyond the span of a few decades (or, for that mater, being incapable of choosing as pet systems with any hope of doing more than killing and dying), thwarting all manner of carefully honed moral instincts in the process, and killing the most talented people in the nation once they grabbed that power on the disgusting (and possibly pretensive) grounds of killing the weak. No need to assume any deeper connection than marketing.

Note also that the word "Christian" was used as a marketing tool in Nazi Germany. Not because what the Nazis were doing had much anything in common with the ideas set out in the New Testament, but because they wanted to make themselves look good to a primarily Christian population. Marketing. Both cases.
116 posted on 02/07/2006 9:17:00 AM PST by illinoissmith
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To: illinoissmith
All you say is true. But eugenics is explicitly what you get when a fascist ponders natural selection, just as inquisitions are what you get when a fascist ponders the evils of heresy. Some people talk about evolution; the fascist sincerely wants to do something about it.

That his idea of "fittest" always puts himself at the top of the heap is another issue--a psychological one...

118 posted on 02/07/2006 9:35:45 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: illinoissmith; vik

Fascism, being amorphous, as vik pointed out, consists in large part in dressing in cool uniforms and marching around spouting nonsense as justification for smashing and grabbing whatever you can.

The idea that the people on top of the pile are somehow better than the ones on the bottom isn't exactly a new idea (for the people on the top).

The idea of the superiority of certain races predates Darwin and doesn't need Darwin's theories, nor even really use Darwin's theories.


119 posted on 02/07/2006 9:36:23 AM PST by CobaltBlue (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
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