, feeble-minded. The desire to maintain “racial hygiene” was manifested in state programs for the forced extermination of various categories of citizens (see “Killing Program T-4”).
In accordance with the principles of “racial hygiene,” the main targets of persecution were Jews, who were deprived of citizenship rights, the opportunity to work in public service, have a private practice and their own business, marry Germans (Germans) and receive education in public educational institutions. Their property and businesses were registered and subject to confiscation. Acts of violence were constant, and official propaganda incited (or fueled) feelings of prejudice and hatred towards Jews among ethnic Germans. Later, the Jews were subjected to systematic extermination. Similar actions were committed against gypsies, the mentally ill, the disabled, homosexuals and a number of other categories of people considered “inferior”.
Joseph de Gobineau's Essay on the Inequality of Human Races was the first to combine the idea of eugenics with general observations of external differences between people of different nations, laying the foundation for theories of racism (both biological and spiritual) that were successful in Europe until the end of World War II.
The crisis after the First World War and the ideology of the NSDAP
At the beginning of the 20th century, articles and brochures outlining racial theory were very widely distributed in Germany, which extolled the Germanic race and in every possible way humiliated the Semitic race - the Jews. Jews were classified as an inferior, “inferior” race. The results of the First World War intensified racist sentiments. Racist writers, disappointed by defeat, praised the noble German soldier with pure blood. Jews were portrayed as the culprits of all the troubles that befell Germany. This is how the stereotypes of a positive German Aryan hero and a negative Jew were formed. This theory of the superiority of the “master race” was adopted by the Nazis.
Although the dominant ideology of the National Socialists was anti-Semitism, other peoples who were declared inferior were also considered enemies: the French (as “Negroids”), the Slavs (as “incapable of creativity”), etc.
Attitude towards Jews
Anti-Semitic ideas, popular back in the 19th century among German nationalists, were supported by some geneticists (See Racial Hygiene), who also began actively promoting them, which served as support for the authorities pursuing racial policies. The key book that influenced the formation of racial anti-Semitism of the German National Socialists was “ Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts"H.S. Chamberlain where he developed two main themes: the Aryans - as the creators and bearers of civilization, and the Jews - as a negative racial force, a destructive and degenerating factor in history.
The danger of racial anti-Semitism of the Nazis before their rise to power in 1933, and even in the early days after it, was not obvious to all Jews. Thus, the newspaper Judische Rundschau already in August 1933 announced the hope that the Nazis would respect the rights of ethnic minorities.
Jews were consistently excluded from the political and economic life of the Third Reich, as well as from the fields of science and art. Marxism and other rationalistic trends in philosophy were called “racially alien” as “generated by the Talmud.” The exact sciences were assessed using the same criteria; the concept of “Aryan physics” was used, as opposed to “Jewish” (in particular, the theory of relativity). Jewish roots were claimed for a number of new trends in fine art (surrealism, dadaism, expressionism), which were united under the name “degenerate art.”
Open physical persecution of Jews began in 1938 during the so-called “Crystal Night”, which was preceded by the declaration of Jewish passports as invalid and the deportation of Jewish Polish citizens. After the attack on Poland in September 1939, the head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), R. Heydrich, ordered the concentration of Polish Jews in ghettos. In the following months, all Jews in Poland between the ages of 14 and 60 were sent to forced labor, and Jewish bank accounts were frozen
As Germany conquered other countries, Jews were persecuted there depending on local initiatives and German pressure. The plan for the complete extermination of the Jews apparently took shape at the beginning of the war with the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Jews of the Soviet Union were subject to extermination, first of all, as “carriers of Bolshevism.” For the mass extermination of Jews (and other “racially undesirable” elements, as well as resistance members), special units were created - Einsatzgruppen, assisted by Wehrmacht soldiers and local collaborators. As a result, most of the Soviet Jews remaining in the occupied territory were exterminated. In 1942, most of the Jews of Eastern and Central Europe were exterminated, as well as a significant part of the Jews of Western Europe. In 1943–1944, a labor shortage led to a temporary revision of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Himmler ordered the use of the labor of the remaining Jews in the interests of the war economy and even offered to release some of the Jews in exchange for political concessions (for example, a separate peace with the West) or for a colossal ransom. Towards the end of the war, some Nazi leaders tried to use Jews to establish contact with the Allies, but others (notably Hitler) continued to demand the total extermination of the survivors. Against the backdrop of the advance of Soviet troops, the SS liquidated the last ghettos and work camps and destroyed traces of the crimes committed.
In addition to executions, such methods of killing as poisoning with exhaust gases in special vehicles (“gas chambers”) and “gas chambers” were used. Living conditions in ghettos and concentration camps were also designed to allow death from exhaustion and disease.
Estimates of the number of Jewish casualties ranged from 4.2 million to 8 million. The number “six million people” is enshrined in the verdicts of the Nuremberg trials.
Attitude towards gypsies
Between 1935 and 1938, the police and social welfare departments begin to place Roma in forced detention camps, in particular in the Marzan camp
Since March 1936, Gypsies have been subject to the provisions of the so-called “Nuremberg Laws” (German: Nürnberger Gesetze) on citizenship and race, which prohibit them from marrying Germans and participating in elections; Gypsies are deprived of the citizenship of the Third Reich.
On May 16, 1938, by order of Reichsführer SS Himmler, a department to combat the “Gypsy threat” was included in the Berlin Criminal Investigation Department. The first law directly and directly directed against the Gypsies was Himmler’s circular of December 8, 1938 “On the fight against the Gypsy threat.” It spoke of “settlement of the Gypsy question based on racial principles.”
In the second half of the 1930s, forced sterilization of Roma began, in particular by such a method as an injection into the uterus with a dirty needle, which often led to death from blood poisoning.
On April 27, 1940, on the orders of Himmler, the first deportations of Sinti and Roma to Polish territory began - to labor and concentration camps, as well as to Jewish ghettos. Polish Roma are also placed in ghettos and their property is confiscated. Later, Gypsies, like Jews, were sent from the ghetto to death camps.
In the fall of 1941, in the occupied territories of the USSR, along with the mass murders of Jews, mass murders of Roma began. The Einsatzgruppen destroyed the camps they encountered along the way. In Germany, arrests of Roma began in 1943, and those arrested were sent to Auschwitz. The extermination of Roma, along with Jews and Serbs, was also carried out by the Ustasha regime in Croatia.
Estimates of the number of Roma killed vary from 200,000 to 1,500,000.
Attitude towards the Slavs
The question of the Nazis' attitude towards the Slavic peoples has been studied quite little. This led to the fact that in the 90s, ideas began to spread in right-wing radical circles that the Slavs were supposedly recognized as racially equal with the Germans and fought “for the purity of Aryan blood.”
The ideas of “second-classness” and “racial inferiority” of the Slavs were recorded in the works of Gobineau. The main idea of a number of racial theorists was that the Proto-Slavs belonged to the Nordic race, but by now the Slavs have completely lost this component.
Himmler’s plans are known, set out in a secret memorandum “Some thoughts on the treatment of foreigners in the East,” in particular about dividing the population of Eastern Europe into small groups and the subsequent destruction of these groups. After the extermination of the Jews, it was planned to exterminate the Kashubians, Gurals, Lemkos, etc. The memorandum also contained a proposal to limit the education of “foreigners” to “counting up to 500,” writing one’s name and knowing “God’s law.” Reading skill was called superfluous.
According to American historian John Connelly, not too many attacks against the Slavic peoples can be found in the early works of Hitler and other Nazis. He also believes that initially Nazi ideologists made almost no difference between different groups of the Slavic population; in practice, however, the attitude towards different peoples was different, being dictated, as a rule, by opportunistic considerations.
According to Connelly, before the outbreak of World War II, the Nazis most likely did not have consistent plans for implementing racial policies regarding the Slavs, although they considered them an inferior group of peoples. After the destruction of Poland, the Poles and Slavs as a whole gradually, in the eyes of the Nazis, moved into the category of “non-European peoples.”
Only Polish, Russian and Ukrainian Ostarbeiters were subject to the death penalty for sexual contact with the German population. The Reich Commissioner of Ukraine Erich Koch called the Ukrainians “racially inferior,” considering them little different from animals and organized hunts for them in special reservations (despite the fact that in the district of Galicia in 1939 the formation of the Ukrainian Central Committee was allowed and the Ukrainians were in a privileged position in relation to to the Poles position).
Changes in attitude also occurred based on observations of hair color, eye color, and anthropometric measurements of local residents.
Connelly notes that the Slovaks, Croats and Bulgarians had their own puppet states and entered the war on the side of the Axis (while the Croats simultaneously persecuted other southern Slavs - the Serbs), and the regime in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was noticeably softer than that established in the General Government and in the occupied territory of the USSR.
According to Connelly, the reason for such an inconsistent policy towards the Slavs is that South-Eastern Europe was not part of Hitler’s plans to occupy “living space” and until 1943 was primarily within the sphere of Italian influence. The relatively soft regime towards the Slovaks and Czechs was dictated by the interests of the war economy and the tractability of these peoples. At the same time, the cities of the Soviet Union, as territories of “living space,” on the contrary, had to be destroyed, and the territory was devastated and then populated by rural German residents.
Among the Slavs, the Poles were among the most affected. From 1939 to 1945, at least 1.5 million Polish citizens were deported to Germany for forced labor. Hundreds of thousands more were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. According to some estimates, the Nazis killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Poles during World War II. It should be noted that in 1943, after heavy defeats on the Eastern Front, the Nazis officially allowed representatives of all Slavic peoples, except Poles, to serve in the Waffen-SS (by that time, units manned by ethnic Ukrainians were already part of the Wehrmacht - for example, battalions "Nachtigall" and "Roland").
Attitude towards other nations
D. B. Levin noted that the Nazis had abusive nicknames for every nation. So, they called the British “a degenerate tribe of plutocrats”, the French - “negroids”, Italians - “people of spoiled blood and poisoned souls”, Romanians, Hungarians and Turks - “monkeys”.
According to the testimony of a former prisoner, the principle of racial segregation was fully observed in prisons. The prisoners were divided into four categories (according to the presence of “Nordic admixture”): the first - Germans (the superior race, Ubermensch), the second - Dutch, Danes, Norwegians (although a pure Nordic race, but not Ubermensch), the third - French, Belgians, Italians (semi-Nordic race), the fourth - Russians, Poles, Czechs (only traces of Nordic blood, mostly Untermensches)."
In July 1941, Reichsführer Himmler gave a speech to the SS men from Battle Group Nord, who were leaving for the Eastern Front, where he admonished them for the war and stated that “on the other side stands a people of 180 million, a mixture of races and peoples, whose names are unpronounceable and whose physical essence is such that the only thing that can be done with them is to shoot them without any pity or mercy.” He also listed the Huns, Hungarians, Tatars, Mongols and Russians as “subhumans”:
When you, my friends, fight in the East, you continue the same struggle against the same subhumanity, against the same inferior races that once fought under the name of the Huns, later - 1000 years ago during the time of Kings Henry and Otto I - under under the name of the Hungarians, and subsequently under the name of the Tatars; then they appeared again under the name of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Today they are called Russians under the political banner of Bolshevism.
Among Soviet prisoners of war, immigrants from Central Asia and Transcaucasia were especially often killed and abused as Asians.
Descendants of black Entente soldiers and German women, called "Rhineland bastards", were subject to forced sterilization starting in 1937.
However, racial theory was restructured to suit current foreign policy. In particular, if initially the Italians were classified as a “low-value Mediterranean race”, and the Japanese were awarded contemptuous nicknames, as they became closer to Italy and Japan, these peoples began to be classified respectively as the descendants of the Romans and the “chosen race”.
The Germans themselves also did not escape persecution based on ideas of “racial completeness.” As part of racial hygiene, people with mental disorders and hereditary diseases were subject to sterilization and destruction, and later also disabled people and those who had been ill for more than 5 years. One of the last eugenic decrees of the Fuhrer in 1945 was about the extermination of Germans suffering from pulmonary diseases.
Principles of the racist ideology of the Nazis
1. Belief in the superiority of one, or less often several, races over others. This belief is usually combined with a hierarchical classification of racial groups. Thus, blacks and Arabs were classified by the Nazis as an inferior race, and Jews were generally excluded from the hierarchical ladder and were placed in a position of “outlaws” (Nuremberg Laws, Holocaust).
2. The idea that the superiority of some and the inferiority of others are of a biological or bioanthropological nature. This conclusion follows from the belief that superiority and inferiority are ineradicable and cannot be changed, for example, under the influence of social environment or upbringing.
3. The idea that collective biological inequality is reflected in social order and culture and that biological superiority is expressed in the creation of a “superior civilization”, which itself indicates biological superiority. This “higher civilization” was called by Nazi ideologists the “thousand-year Reich” or “Third Reich”. This idea establishes a direct relationship between biology and social conditions (appeared in eugenics).
4. Belief in the legitimacy of the dominance of superior races over inferior ones.
5. The belief that there are “pure” races, and mixing inevitably has a negative impact on them (decline, degeneration, etc.). “The fatal blow comes from mixing with foreign blood” (Himmler).
Chronology of events
First, discrimination was introduced against mixed-breeds from marriages between Germans and Jews. On November 26, 1935, circulars from the Ministry of the Interior officially included “gypsies, blacks and their bastards” in the category of “racially inferior” (the logical result of this was the sterilization after the annexation of the Rhineland in 1936 of African soldiers of the French army and German mestizos born there from marriages , known as Rhineland bastards). Gypsies were discriminated against and accordingly recognized as racially inferior. Also included in the category of “racially inferior” were everyone who did not correspond to the ideal (which was cultivated by the National Socialists), even despite their racial type, for example: representatives of sexual minorities, drug addicts, alcoholics, etc. The ideologists of eugenic policy considered such people to be regressive and undesirable elements, carriers of genetic cargo, subject to degeneration and degeneration, who pollute the Aryan blood with their diseased heredity.
From March 1936, the provisions of the “Nuremberg Laws”, which previously applied only to Jews, were extended to the Gypsies: they were also prohibited from marrying Germans and participating in elections, and the citizenship of the Third Reich was removed from the Gypsies. At the same time, “racially pure gypsies” (selected from among the Sinti gypsies based on a combination of appearance and behavior recognized as positive) had the same rights as Germans, with the exception of the right to marry Germans, and “half-breed gypsies” (all Roma gypsies and most Sinti gypsies) were equated with Jews as “destroyers of culture.”
The presence of Jews in the genealogy was compromising material. All these facts were included in Himmler's dossier.
The Nazi racial theory included a branch of genetics - eugenics (called racial hygiene in Germany), according to which strict rules of reproduction were supposed to lead to the improvement of the German race and stop the growth of lower representatives, who multiplied much faster, according to eugenics supporters.
A continuation of the development of eugenic concepts was the implementation by the German Nazis in 1940 of the T-4 program for the sterilization and physical destruction of “inferior elements” - mainly patients in psychiatric hospitals, including children suffering from mental illness, as well as persons suffering from birth defects , including disabled children. As part of this program, 275 thousand people were killed in Germany alone.
- The T-4 euthanasia program is the destruction of the mentally ill, and in general those sick for more than 5 years, as incapacitated.
- Lebensborn - the birth and upbringing in orphanages of children from persons who have passed racial selection, that is, having predominantly Nordic origin and not having non-European racial admixtures.
- "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (total extermination of the Jews, see also Holocaust, Einsatzgruppen)
In works of art
- film “The Shop on the Square” (Czechoslovakia, 1965)
The dependence of humanity on science and technology for survival is steadily increasing. However, the relationship between science and society is not always harmonious. Scientific discoveries sometimes contradict established views, and scientists may be pressured to stop researching or even recant their discoveries. Of these cases, the most famous is the case of Galileo. Then Cardinal Bellarmini declared that “imaginary discovery[Galilee] is contrary to the whole Christian plan of salvation.” Bellarmini was right, if you understand the “plan” as he understood it. Galileo complained that “the main professor of philosophy, to whom I repeatedly and persistently invited him to look at the Moon and planets through my glass[telescope], stubbornly refused to do so.” In a sense, the professor was also right. Nothing he could see through Galileo's telescope could cause him to change his established views. Anti-evolutionists from California who call themselves creationists are the same type of people. Not all of them are completely ignorant of the evidence for biological evolution. However, any evidence is meaningless to them. No matter what the evidence points to, they still reject it.
Among the biological sciences, genetics is perhaps the most relevant to humanities. Its significance lies primarily in philosophical and historical applications: where did humanity come from, what could happen to it next, what is its place in the system of nature. Its significance lies in directly practical problems: physical and mental health and illness, receptivity to learning and upbringing, pliability to the pressures and strains of the material and socioeconomic environment that shape personality. Moreover, theoretical and practical applications do not belong to non-overlapping areas; they are interdependent.
The more directly relevant a scientific discipline is to human activity, the more likely it is to conflict with some commonly held beliefs and prejudices. The unenviable lot of genetics has been and remains to be involved in such contradictions. The shameful history of the repression of genetics in the Soviet Union, which occurred not so long ago, has been widely covered enough that it does not need to be repeated here. A politically clever charlatan was able to convince the ruler of a great country that genetics undermined the accepted religion of dialectical materialism. He was also able to destroy his country's agriculture for a quarter of a century under the pretext of creating incredibly effective ways to improve it. In the first half of this century, genetics suffered from other perversions at the hands of fanatics of racism and class theory. They declared genetics to be the scientific basis of their inhumane and malicious ideas. The apotheosis of such perversions was the Nazi ideology and the crimes of the Nazis. Therefore, to this day, genetics continues to remain under suspicion in some circles.
For at least a century the battlefield has been the problem of heredity and environment, or nature and nurture. We are talking about the contribution of hereditary and environmental factors to the development of human characteristics, especially behavioral traits. The spectrum of opinion here ranges from what I like to call the tabula rasa myth to the myth of genetic predestination. These myths are invented to explain speculative ideas or natural phenomena that are too complex and not well enough studied to obtain an accurate and indisputable interpretation. I think it is not too optimistic to hope that in science myths will eventually give way to ideas that will be so well founded that they will lead to the agreement of all but the hopelessly stubborn. In the problem of nature and nurture such a happy moment is not yet visible. Therefore, I believe that it is most effective didactically to begin the study of this problem with the two extreme myths, fully aware that they arose more out of controversy and prejudice than scientific evidence.
A historical overview is beyond the scope of this article. However, it should be clearly remembered that the myths about genetic predestination and tabula rasa older than scientific biology. The Indian caste system has existed for over two millennia; The profession and social status of the individual were determined solely by the position of the parents. It was implicitly assumed that the qualities required for each profession were inherited. If the ideologues of the caste system were familiar with genetics, they could say that the members of each caste have caste-specific genes that are absent in other castes. The closed social classes of feudal Europe also accepted genetic predestination as the rule, although more flexible than in India. Remnants of feudal-class ideology are not uncommon in modern capitalist and quasi-socialist societies.
The concept of tabula rasa was formulated in expanded form by Locke in 1690. He believed that the mind of a newborn child contains no innate thoughts or principles. Human understanding arises from sense data and life experience. Today, the myth of tabula rasa implies that all human beings are endowed with the same abilities at birth: human beings are interchangeable. The opposite mythical idea of genetic predestination in modern terms and in genetic terms is found in the works of S.D. Darlington. He argued that every personality became what it is because its genes made it that way. Even differences between monozygotic twins, according to Darlington, are partly due to genetic rather than environmental factors. Success or failure is determined by genes, not by environment or luck. The origin of cultures is due to “the inventions of those few who are genetically capable of socially useful inventions, the teaching by them of those who are genetically capable of learning,” and the resistance of those who are genetically incapable of either invention or learning. The entire history of mankind, its races, nations and classes, is a biological phenomenon, not a social one - it is determined by genes and what Darlington called “inbreeding and outbreeding” (his use of these terms differs significantly from the generally accepted one). The medium, Darlington assures us, “has become a methodological fiction.”
Myth about tabula rasa is sacred dogma for Marxists in the Soviet Union and beyond. They believe that the biological evolution of mankind ceased when man invented work. Since then, humanity has supposedly obeyed social rather than biological laws. Differences in behavioral traits and abilities of people are created by the environment. It is surprising how little effort is made to figure out how the environment induces observed differences or which environmental variables are responsible for specific traits. Doubt about accepting the myth about tabula rasa as an adequate and accurate description of reality is often attributed to bias due to the social background or economic status of the doubter or even the desire to perpetuate inequality and oppression.
There is no denying that bias does exist and it can affect the judgment of some people. Scientists are not necessarily immune to such bias. Having admitted this, you still continue to be amazed at the thinking of true believers in the myths of predestination and tabula rasa. They do not see that the genetic and environmental determinants of individual and group differences can only be identified through careful observation and testing of working hypotheses. Personal views cannot replace scientific research. What genes can do and what the environment can do should be a matter of proof, not belief. Science must eventually reach agreement on this issue, regardless of tastes and views. But only if we don’t want to compete with the professor who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope.
Zealous supporters of the myth of tabula rasa However, we must concede that some aspects of human behavior are determined by genetic reasons. There are many hereditary diseases that disrupt the behavior of people suffering from them and their adaptation to life in the family, community, and society. As an example, consider phenylketonuria. This disease is caused by a recessive gene: untreated homozygotes suffer from severe mental retardation and are completely unable to care for themselves. This is undoubtedly a hereditary disease. Are these homozygotes doomed by an unfortunate roll of the genetic dice to live out their lives in the twilight of dementia? No, today predestination is not immutable; it can be eliminated. Phenylketonuria was incurable until it was discovered that its physiological cause was a disorder of metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine. The accumulation of phenylalanine in body fluids leads to irreversible brain damage. If this disease is diagnosed early enough, its manifestations can be limited with a diet that is almost phenylalanine-free. Diet is undoubtedly an attribute of the environment.
Phenylketonuria is a rare disease, but it may be an example of the relationship between nature and nurture. Both the physical characteristics and the human psyche are subject to genetic variation. This variation may be fatal or manageable depending on how well its origins and causes are understood. In principle, any result of gene activity can be enhanced or suppressed by environmental influences, although in practice this is not always possible due to our ignorance. Schizophrenia is much more common than phenylketonuria. It is undoubtedly genetically determined, but neither the type of its inheritance nor the physiological basis have been established. As a result, its prevention and treatment are problematic. Even less is known about the inheritance of mental abilities. Hence the serious disputes generated by this problem. Here I will limit myself to a brief remark. Let us assume that IQ is genetically determined and that attempts to increase it with the help of a special educational program have so far been unsuccessful. Does it follow from this that IQ genetically predetermined? No, it only follows that the ways of learning and the influence of the environment on the development of intelligence have yet to be understood.
Discussions of nature versus nurture are often distorted by emotion and confusion. The source of emotionality is political passions or racial and/or class prejudices. Confusion often arises from a lack of understanding of how genes and environment work in shaping a person's personality. There are people who want to convince themselves that they are better than their fellows, either as individuals or as members of a class or race. The simplest trick is to claim that their superiority is genetic. Others rightly deny the existence of such things as genetic superiority or inferiority, but unfortunately go too far and fall into the embrace of the myth of tabula rasa.
With emotion comes confusion. It is a mistake to think of the nature versus nurture issue as an either/or situation. All traits, from biochemical and morphological to cultural traits, are always hereditary and always determined by the environment. Genes and environment are not autonomous aspects of development. Not a single trait can develop unless such a possibility is inherent in the genotype; if development occurs under different environmental conditions, then the manifestation of the genotype will vary according to changing environmental conditions. A child or adult acquires the language or languages of his or her human environment. This is Wednesday. However, to learn any language, an individual must have human genes that enable him to learn. Severe genetic or environmental conditions may interfere with learning. The above-mentioned phenylketonuria and some other inborn errors of metabolism lead to varying degrees of mental retardation. These are genetic conditions. But let me repeat that the expression of some of these genes is now amenable to environmental regulation, and in due time this will spread to most or even all such genes. The same disease can be genetic or environmental. Consider, for example, this hypothetical situation: every person is a carrier of the genes for phenylketonuria or diabetes. Then a diet almost free of phenylalanine, or a health program that supplies insulin, would be a “normal” environment. The disease will appear if phenylalanine is accidentally introduced into the diet or the supply of insulin is interrupted. But then phenylketonuria and diabetes will become not genetic, but environmental diseases! However, individuals who do not have the genes for phenylketonuria or diabetes do not require a phenylalanine-free diet or insulin injections. They may even be harmful to them.
In the early days of genetics, half a century ago, it was assumed that each gene determines one and only one elementary character (“unit character”). This misleading phraseology still misleads some biologists, not to mention ordinary people. It fits too well with everyday expressions such as “she inherited her eyes from her mother” or “he got his walk from his father.” But genes and traits are not correlated one to one. A gene can be responsible for several traits, a “syndrome,” or a group of traits. The presence of a gene does not always guarantee the appearance of a certain trait, and a trait can be determined either by genetic or environmental factors. In reality, everything is much simpler: there is a fundamental rule that often very complex developmental processes intervene between the action of the gene transmitted by the germ cells and the characteristics that appear at different ages. The genotype (the set of genes of an organism) determines not a fixed set of characteristics, but a reaction norm, that is, a repertoire of possible responses to the action of the environment.
Heredity, properly understood, is not the dice of fate. Rather, it is a multitude of potentialities. Which part of the many potentials will be realized is determined by environmental factors and the biography of the individual. Only fanatical adherents of the myth of genetic predestination can doubt that the life of each person offers many options, of which only a part, probably an insignificant part, is actually realized. The problem is the extent to which sets of options are similar or different across individuals. Fanatics of the myth of genetic predestination insist that those who believe in the non-identity of such sets of variants are racists. This is nonsense. Racism exists and it is a vicious ideology that certainly needs to be fought against. But we should understand what racism is and not use the word indiscriminately as a dirty word. A racist treats people according to their background, according to the group into which they happen to be born, and not according to their personal qualities. The fallacy of racism lies in the fallacy of typological thinking. The individual is not a pale reflection of Plato's idea of his race, class or family. In contrast to typological thinking, population thinking, based on genetics, considers each person as a unique phenomenon, a unique individual. Everyone has the right to be judged according to what they are, not according to their background. And a person is what he is because his genotype plus his entire biography made him that way. In this context, I use the word “biography” and not “environment” because to some extent a person makes himself the way he wants to be, of course, within the limits imposed by the external environment.
Proponents of the myths of genetic predestination and the tabula rasa are equally guilty of confused thinking. They cannot distinguish human equality from genetic identity and inequality from genetic diversity. Equality and inequality, on the one hand, and genetic identity and diversity, on the other, belong to different areas of reasoning. Equality and inequality of opportunity or social status do not relate to biological phenomena, but to the sociopolitical structure. They are generated by active ethical or religious principles and are shaped by political struggle and adaptation. Genetic identity and diversity are natural phenomena. They cannot be abolished, unlike equality and inequality, by political decision. Monozygotic twins are genetically identical or nearly identical, but their economic and social status may differ significantly. Those with social privilege are not genetically identical to each other, and neither are the underprivileged or the victims of oppression.
The lack of distinction between equality and genetic identity is sometimes not accidental, but deliberate. And supporters of both myths are also guilty of this. Even before the advent of scientific genetics, slave owners and feudal barons had their own “genetics” to prove that the people they owned were inferior human beings, if they could be considered human at all. At the beginning of this century, the emerging scientific field of genetics was used for the same purpose. Modern adherents of the myth of genetic predestination continue to use their science to support their racial and class claims. In order to feign scientific objectivity, they hypocritically allegedly acknowledge environmental influences on the formation of human personality. However, once we agree that the existing socioeconomic stratification is determined by genes, the environment becomes powerless to change it. Here is the opinion of S.D. Darlington: “What happened in developed societies to the barriers that existed between primitive tribes? They have been preserved. But now these are barriers between social classes. Today we can still perceive the message of an Athenian artist or playwright, or a Hebrew poet, as if they were living among us now. But, alas, we cannot convey this message to the butcher or baker on our doorstep.” You see - the butcher and the baker are made of inferior material!
Liberals and equality advocates let their opponents fool them. Since the latter believe in genetic predestination, the former (by contradiction) support the myth of tabula rasa. If everyone is genetically identical, does it follow that everyone is equal? A closer look reveals that things are not that simple. Equality between people is important because of genetic diversity, not in spite of it. If all people were genetically similar to each other, like monozygotic twins, equality would become meaningless. People could be assigned to different types of work by lot, according to their date of birth or some other conditional criterion. It is genetic diversity that makes equality valuable and important. Equality is the actual recognition of the right of people to be different. People can follow different, freely chosen paths of self-expression. They have the right to be individuals, and not cogs in a monstrous machine of suppression. It is worth repeating that equality is not a biological phenomenon, but a social structure created by man himself. Equality is an ethical principle embodied by political means. It provides each person with the opportunity to strive for the lifestyle that he has chosen and is capable of achieving. Because people are not the same, they set different goals, some of these goals are achievable, others are not. One way or another, equality can be granted to genetically different people, but it can be denied to genetically similar individuals. Monozygotic twins may achieve different intellectual levels and socioeconomic status, and genetically different people often choose similar careers.
Sentiment in public opinion, both in scientific circles and among the population, has been progressively polarized in recent years towards the acceptance of either the myth of genetic predestination or the myth of tabula rasa. It is all too clear that polarization is driven by political partisanship, not scientific evidence. Both myths no longer provide any benefit that they may have provided in the past. Myths are ripe to give way to well-founded facts. Human variability, including variability in mental abilities, is clearly not entirely determined by either genetic or environmental factors. Both of these causes are at work, but their relative role is not the same for different traits in the same population or for the same trait in different populations. It is absurd to argue that since some traits, such as body type or head shape, are more dependent on genotype in certain populations, then other traits, such as intelligence or temperament, must also be predominantly heritable. Each symptom must be adequately investigated. It is equally misleading to equate the heritability of individual differences with average differences between populations. The heritability of differences between populations, such as social classes or races, need not be identical or similar to individual differences. The degree of heritability must be established on the basis of carefully collected data in well-designed experiments or observations. Genetic and mathematical methods for such studies have been developed relatively recently. Moreover, the heritability of the same trait can vary not only between populations, but also at different times in the same population. Heritability is not a constant, but a variable value. It increases when the environment becomes more homogeneous or the population more heterogeneous; it decreases as the environment becomes more diverse and the population more genetically homogeneous. The bitter controversy which has recently spilled out of the scientific journals into the popular press could have been avoided if the above considerations had been understood.
Many problems concerning the genetic and environmental causes of human variability await scientific study. However, there are scientists who are ready to ban all research on human genetic diversity. They argue that such research is dangerous because its results can be twisted by racists for nefarious purposes. It cannot be denied that such a danger exists. But is cowardly avoidance a good decision? Would we like to follow the example of Galileo's colleague, who refused to look at the planets through a telescope? His refusal was based on similar arguments. He feared that the new astronomy would be misinterpreted or would divert people's attention from subjects he considered more important. However, almost every follower of his today becomes a despicable ignoramus.
Another plausible argument is sometimes put forward against the study of human genetics. Since we cannot change the genotype of a person with which he was born, then the study of genetic variability in people is obviously useless and uninteresting. Whether it's interesting or not is a matter of personal taste, but an unfounded statement of uselessness cannot be left unchallenged. Scientists do not work solely for their own pleasure: the society that supports their research has the right to ask what their work does? This is true today even more than in the recent past. The golden age of scientific research in the United States, when research was generously supported because its fruits were considered always good and useful, has passed, at least for a time. Denial of science and intelligence is on the rise, and scientists have to face a fair amount of mistrust and skepticism. However, treating the study of a person as a useless activity is a clear example of idle talk. Isn’t the ultimate goal of the biological sciences, and perhaps of all sciences, to understand man and his place in the system of nature? Man has been faced with the problem of “know thyself” since he became a man, and will continue to develop it as long as he remains a man. How then can understanding the causes of human diversity be useless or unnecessary?
Those who claim that “man is just one of the animals” slander biological science. Racism is the most harmful result of such distorted judgment. Sociologists rightly reject this distortion. But many of them counter this with an equally extravagant statement - “man has escaped biology.” So, man is undoubtedly an animal, but an animal of a unique and extraordinary kind. The species “man” created culture, a new and very powerful method of adapting to and managing the environment. Culture is not inherited through genes; each individual acquires it through learning. However, the ability to assimilate culture is inherent in the genotype. Many animal species form communities, sometimes highly organized ones. But animal communities depend more on genetically programmed than learned behaviors. On the contrary, learned behavior prevails both in all existing forms of human social organization and in all past organizations about which documentary historical information has been preserved. The statement that “man escaped biology” when he created a social organization based on culture is meaningless. Firstly, only carriers of human genes can themselves assimilate and pass on culture to their descendants through training. Moreover, the ability and propensity to learn varies quantitatively and qualitatively among people. Biology alone does not provide a completely authentic and satisfactory image of man, but such an image is not achievable without biology. The human phenomenon is amazingly complex, so complex that for a long time even the most profound thinkers could not fully understand it. In the absence of real understanding, myths about genetic predestination and tabula rasa served as palliatives. Could such an understanding be achieved in the not too distant future through the combined efforts of the biological and social sciences?
The problem of equality and inequality is one of the most difficult problems facing modern humanity. This problem faces all societies and humanity as a whole. It is hardly possible to consider this problem here in all its aspects. However, I think I need to cover some of its basics. This problem very clearly demonstrates the situation where the biological and social sciences must act effectively together, being powerless separately. It was already noted above that equality and inequality are not biological phenomena, but are determined by the sociopolitical structure. People can be endowed with equality regardless of their similarities or differences. The only necessary and sufficient condition for the equality of individuals is their belonging to the species Homo sapiens. On the other hand, people may be endowed with unequal rights according to the color of their skin, the status of the family into which they were born, their IQ IQ, physical prowess, beauty or lack thereof, or any other sign. The decision to recognize equality or maintain inequality is rarely, if ever, subject to the will of one person. It is rather the result of social evolution, political struggle or adaptation. Should we not then conclude that genetics and biology are irrelevant to the issue of equality? This would be unreasonable.
If all people were genetically similar, like monozygotic twins, equality or inequality would still be possible as a social arrangement. It could be argued that differences and division of labor require inequality, while standardization is better compatible with equality. If anything, people would be interchangeable. But they are not interchangeable. Undoubtedly, all nonpathological individuals share some species-specific human abilities. Among them is learning ability, i.e. the ability to learn from other people and learn from one's own experiences. People communicate using symbolic language, anticipate the consequences of their actions, and can distinguish between good and evil. However, even these species-wide abilities vary from individual to individual, and it is very likely that this variation has a significant genetic component. Various special abilities, from composing music and poetry to athletic talent requiring excellent sensory and muscular coordination, are distributed very unevenly. Some individuals have them in abundance, while others seem to lack them completely. The genetic basis of all these special abilities is not nearly as firmly established as we would like. And yet, the existence of genetic components in the variation of these abilities is very likely (which, undoubtedly, does not give reason to underestimate the importance of environmental components). Be that as it may, each person is an unprecedented and unique individual. People are not interchangeable.
Does genetic diversity necessarily lead to human equality? Not necessarily, as evidenced by the fact that striking inequalities have existed in many societies for centuries and millennia, and even still today, despite the diversity of people. In fact, inequality has often been interpreted as a product of real or perceived genetic differences. Slavery was justified time and time again by the claim that black people were an intermediate form between white people and apes, even closer to apes than to white people. Just ten years ago, an anthropologist argued that whites had reached the level of Homo sapiens about a quarter of a million years earlier than blacks. Given both genetic diversity and genetic identity, human equality remains primarily an issue of ethics, sociology, and politics, and less of a problem of biological science.
However, two considerations should be made here. They both concern the distinction between facts and value judgments.
Firstly, society, apparently every society, benefits from the optimal development and fullest realization of the socially useful abilities, talents and gifts of all its members. It is not necessary for us here to touch upon the controversial issue of whether the abilities and talents of men are equally distributed in all classes of society, or whether they are more concentrated in some classes than in others. Probably everyone recognizes that all types of abilities are found in all strata of society. If so, what countless talents are stunted and wasted in caste-based and strictly class-based societies that deny equality of opportunity to their members and discourage or prohibit social mobility.
Secondly, no less important, the denial of equality leads to frustration and failure of human endeavor. Since individuals differ both genotypically and phenotypically, they tend to choose different paths of self-expression. The diversity of occupations, vocations, aptitudes and professions is clearly greater in technologically advanced than in undeveloped societies. And this diversity increases approximately exponentially. Even with the greatest attainable equality of opportunity, not everyone reaches the chosen level or degree of perfection necessary to satisfy himself and those whose recognition and appreciation are important to him. The reasons for failure may be different. One of them, of course, is chance or bad luck. Another is the discrepancy between the chosen career and the genetically determined abilities of the individual. But if equality of opportunity does not always prevent failure, then inequality leads to much more severe consequences. With inequality, a huge number of people are cut off from even trying to acquire a profession in which they could achieve excellence. At the same time, they see how significantly less gifted people are favored by their financial resources or family connections. If people were the same by nature, then inequality would only be unfair. Since people are genetically different, inequality leads to a waste of talent.
As noted above, racism is a product of the typological fallacy, in which people are judged by their membership in a particular biological or social group, rather than by their personal qualities or actions. However, some argue that the study of the genetics of human behavior should be stopped because it is grist to the mill of racists. How can people be so intellectually myopic? They fail to see that it is genetics that undermines any semblance of validity in racist beliefs. Equality of opportunity is necessary because people are different. The purpose of such equality is not to make everyone the same, but to help each person realize his socially useful potential.
It is generally accepted, at least theoretically, that all people need to be given the most favorable conditions possible for their self-expression. What are these conditions? If people were genetically uniform, then two solutions could be proposed. First, educators could conceivably develop one method of education and training that would be excellent for everyone. Everyone would then be put through the same educational machine. Some people see this solution as the only “democratic” one. Second, one could follow the tactics proposed by O. Huxley in Brave New World. Human evolution has endowed our species with remarkable plasticity of behavior and mental development in various environmental conditions. Therefore, by restructuring the environment, it is possible to transform genetically identical human material into workers of several or many specialties, trained to perform certain types of work. But do we want to live in this “brave new world”?
The complexity of the problem increases even more when we take into account human genetic diversity. To offer here any specific recommendations on how to organize educational systems in different societies would be unfounded or even stupid. However, a few general remarks based on elementary biological reasoning may be in order. Because people differ in nature, the optimal conditions for development and self-expression are unlikely to be the same for everyone. No environment and no education system can be equally good everywhere. The best system will be great for some, acceptable for others, and unsuitable for others. What are the possible solutions? The easiest thing to do is to ignore the diversity of people and treat everyone as if they were all the same in their needs and motivations. A unified system of upbringing and education in this case would meet the needs of the “average person.” This would be welcomed by those who would like everyone not only to have the same opportunities as everyone else, but also for everyone to differ from each other as little as possible, as human genetic diversity will allow. Is a world populated by billions of contented but identical specimens of our species the best one could dream of? Fitting everyone into the same Procrustean bed will result in many people being limited in their ability to develop the unconventional gifts they have.
Any program that attempts to provide special conditions most suitable for the development of individuals with different aptitudes will create many difficult problems. Some of these problems will be broadly biological, others social, and others political. Unfortunately, most liberal psychologists and educators believed for many decades that the myth of tabula rasa is an objective idea of a person. Using this myth as a working hypothesis, they had little success in developing methods for early identification of talents and inclinations. Also, little is known about what conditions are favorable or optimal for the development of individuals with different abilities. This is also true regarding the conditions that contribute to the healing of individuals with mental retardation. Those who believe in the myth of genetic predestination have even less motivation to study genotype-environment interactions. If someone is destined, thanks to his genes, to develop certain talents or not to develop any talents, then all that remains is to let nature do its thing. It is sometimes asked: What useful results can be expected from studying the genetic diversity of people? The answer may be this: only such programs and their implementation can be meaningful and fruitful, which are based on the awareness of genetic diversity and the genetically determined plasticity of human mental development.
It is not a new idea that different types of people need different approaches to their upbringing and training. Segregation of educational programs by race was widespread until recently and has not disappeared to this day. Officially or in fact, there are schools for the scions of the aristocracy and plutocracy. It has often been argued that educational segregation differentiates people of different abilities. But this is a distortion of the idea of creating optimal conditions for people with different inclinations. According to any reasonable hypothesis, genetically determined great or small abilities can be found among people of any race or class. Even if it were known (which has not been reliably established) that the occurrence of individual abilities varies between subpopulations, the selection of optimal conditions for each genotype must be carried out on an individual, rather than group, basis.
Attempts to create education systems that embrace equality of opportunity while providing choice among different career paths are being made in several countries, with particular emphasis in the UK. It is my impression that both proponents and opponents of such educational experiments are not entirely satisfied with the results obtained so far. This is neither surprising nor discouraging, since such experiments are relatively new, and their implementation involves overcoming serious difficulties. Moreover, the most serious of these difficulties are more sociological than biological in nature. If some types of education provide an individual with higher income or higher social status, then institutionalized educational pluralism can become racial or class segregation under another name. Yet uniform education is wasteful and unfair to many people of certain tastes and abilities. The dilemma can only be resolved by moving as close as possible to economic and social equality.
Equality of people has two aspects - equality of opportunity and equality of socio-economic status. A genetically well-equipped person may be born and raised in poverty. Such a person starts out with a large disadvantage, which can negate any equality of opportunity given to that person later. On the contrary, a person with moderate or weak inclinations starts out with a certain advantage if he is born in a stimulating environment. Leveling environmental conditions for humans is a much more difficult task than for individuals of any other biological species. At least two generations must grow up under similar conditions to make equality of opportunity true. Finally, equality can only be realized among people once poverty and privilege are eliminated throughout the world. This undoubtedly enormous task is much more socio-political than biological in nature. In this area, there is ample scope for conflict of personal opinions, since there is no general agreement on the issue of fair distribution.
The idea that the social status and income of all people should be equal is attractive and inspiring to some thinkers, but to others injustice seems to be a greater evil than inequality. The rampant overpopulation of our planet, of course, makes this problem almost insurmountably difficult. As an antithesis to egalitarianism, there are voices in favor of the so-called “lifeboat ethic”: in an overpopulated world with limited resources, each group should hold onto the resources available to it, and those without resources should fend for themselves or die of starvation. Opponents dismiss such ethics as “cynical.” They would rather risk a worldwide decline in living standards or even the physical extinction of humanity than accept the moral degradation of the “lifeboat ethic.”
Starting with the myths of genetic predestination and tabula rasa, as the discussion progressed, we moved beyond biology and came to the issues of justice and even the survival of humanity. This is how it should have happened. Humanity participates in two evolutions - biological and cultural. And they are not independent, but interdependent. They can only be understood as components of a single system, a single plan, which gives meaning not only to the lives of individual people, but perhaps also to the existence of the Universe.
Translation from English V. Ivanova
From the translatorThe myth of genetic predestination is developed in the book: Darlington C.D. The Evolution of Man and Society (L., 1969) and in his shorter article: Race, Class, and Culture (in the book: Biology and the Human Sciences. Oxford, 1972). For a classic account of the tabula rasa myth, see: Watson J.B. Behaviorism. (N.Y., 1924). In the book: Kamin L.J. The Science and Politics (Potomac, 1974) gives an extremely tendentious modern interpretation of this myth.
A thorough and thoughtful review of the wealth of often conflicting data, with commendably objective pointers to areas that require further research, is presented in the book: Loehlin J.C., Lindzey G., Spuhler J.N. Race Differences in the Intelligence (San Francisco, 1975). I wrote a small book: Ivanov W.I. Genetic Diversity and Human Equality (N.Y., 197 3), which attempts to present, as simply as possible, the basic principles of genetics and evolutionary biology that are essential to understanding differences between people. Books: Jensen A.R. Genetics and Education and Educability and Group Differences (N.Y., 1972, 1973) have attracted considerable criticism, but they contain a wealth of data that cannot be ignored by an unbiased scientist. Some of the anti-Jensen polemical literature is collected in the anthology: Race and IQ (L.-N.Y., 1975). An eloquent and fair rebuff to the distortions of genetics is given in two articles: Scarr-Salapatek S. Unknowns in the IQ Equation and Race, Social Class and IQ (Science. 1971. V. 174. P. 1223-1228; 1285-1295).
Notes
1. Dobzhansky T. The Myths of Genetic Predestination and of Tabula Rasa // Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 1976. V. 19. No. 2. S. 156-170. Versions of this article were presented as lectures in memory of F. Tannenbaum, given at the annual meeting of university seminars at Columbia University on April 23, 1975 in New York, at the University of California Santa Barbara on April 30, 1975, at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City on May 13, 1975 (in Spanish translation) and at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on June 27, 1975.
2. Lewontin R. Human individuality: heredity and environment. M., 1993.
3. Cavalli-Sforsa L.L., Feldman M.W. Cultural transmission and evolution. Princeton, New Jersey, 1981.
4. Glotov N.V. Quantitative assessment of genotype-environment interaction in natural populations / Readings in memory of N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky. Yerevan, 1983. P.187-199; Glotov N.V. From anthropocentrism to biospheric thinking // Veche (Almanac of Russian philosophy and culture) St. Petersburg, 1996. Issue 6. pp.182-189; Ivanov V.I. Interaction of genetic and environmental factors in the regulation of ontogenesis // Ontogenesis. 1993. T.24. N.1. P.85-95; Ivanov V.I. Genetics and Environment in Common Diseases. / Genetic Approaches to Noncommunicable Diseases. Berlin-Heidelberg, 1996. P.1-10.
Modern researchers have also done a lot of work in the field of superiority theory. We now know that the higher the status of the target of their joke, the louder they laugh at him. Most people don't think it's funny if a disabled person slips on a banana peel, but replace him with a traffic warden and any of us would burst out laughing. That’s why the heroes of jokes so often become people in power, for example, politicians and judges (“What do you call a lawyer with a 1Q of 15?” - “Your Honor”).
People in power often see nothing funny in such jokes and view them as a real threat to their authority. For example, Hitler was so concerned about this kind of problem that he organized special “Third Reich Courts for Humor,” which punished anyone who made inappropriate jokes, in particular calling his dog Adolf.
Some research shows that the kind of jokes described by superiority theory often have very serious consequences. In 1997, psychologist Gregory Mayo of Cardiff University in Wales and his colleagues studied whether such jokes created negative images of their “heroes.” The work was carried out in Canada, and therefore the main subject of the study was the inhabitants of the island of Newfoundland (or “Newfies”), whom Canadians most often portray as narrow-minded people.
Before the experiment began, volunteers were randomly assigned to two groups and asked to read several jokes into a tape recorder, ostensibly so that the researchers could identify the characteristics of the voice that made it sound funny. Volunteers in the first group were given jokes to read that did not mention Newfies (such as the sitcom Seinfeld), while the second group were given jokes in which the islanders were the butt of jokes.
All volunteers were then asked to express their thoughts about the personality traits of Newfoundlanders. So, those who read the jokes about the Newfs called the islanders mediocre and stupid, but volunteers from another group spoke about them much more kindly.
Another study found that superiority jokes have a powerful effect on how people view themselves. Professor Jene Förster from the University of Bremen in Germany tested the mental abilities of 80 women with different hair colors. Half of them were asked to read jokes that portrayed blondes as mentally retarded. All participants then took an intelligence test.
The blondes who read the jokes scored significantly lower on this test than the blondes in the control group. This speaks to the ability of humor to influence people's behavior and self-esteem and thus create a world in which the stereotypes depicted in jokes become real characters.
