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Why Is Millay Considered A Pacifist?

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On Thursday we began class by listening and responding to Jamal’s protocol. It was briefly mentioned that the Frans de Waal’s ideas could be used to argue with Froid. De Waal pointed out that even animals have societies, and humans are not by nature violent. We then began to discuss the poem by Millay since we did not get much time to talk about it on Tuesday. The poem lists activities that lead to war from parades to breeding. She then blatantly states that people will die out. A major question discussed after reading the poem was how a pacifist can exist in a world full of violence. We answered by saying you can’t fight people who want to go to war because you would not be a pacifist then. A pacifist should let people who want to go to war, go to war and not attempt to stop them. Later on …show more content…

Next we talked about the background of the Einstein and Infeld reading to give us more understanding of why the authors wrote it. The Evolution of Physics was written around WWII, and this war was more deadly and horrific then WWI. It was so deadly since governments targeted civilians in this war. Bombing was frequently used on cities to cripple the resources and hopes of enemy countries. Not only were enemy civilians attacked, but governments attacked their own citizens as well based on the theory of eugenics. Eugenics was meant to improve the human race by scourging the earth of disease and imperfections. One infamous example of this was the Holocaust were the Nazis killed many Jewish people due to the fact they thought Jews were unfit for society along with people with real disabilities. Germans were creating powerful weapons and Einstein wrote a

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Eugenics is not a thought of morale and is not designed to save the entire human race, just the upper socioeconomic class. In North Carolina, feeble minded individuals were used as subjects for all kinds of genocidal experiments. Feeble minded simply means someone who suffers from an illness or mental deficiency and are often easier persuaded because they think they are getting help when they were really being coerced into becoming a test

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Still, the idea was formed to rid the human population of deaf people by sterilizing them, which is founded in eugenics. Eugenics is the study or belief that a way to improve the quality of the human population is by discouraging reproduction of people who have genetic defects. Thus, a person presumed to have genetic defects is discouraged to reproduce, and someone without genetic defects would be encouraged to reproduce. The story in the movie relating how one deaf couple had a still-born baby. After the infant was delivered the doctor sterilized the woman without her consent.

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In Across Five Aprils, there are many views on war talked about. People think of war in different ways, even family members think differently than each other. Since this book is Historical Fiction, the views in this book express the ways the author feels, especially on war. In this essay I will explain the author’s emotions and opinions on this topic.

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Eugenics was prominent during the twenties and aimed to improve the human population by reducing the likeliness of defective genetic traits. Eugenics was practiced mainly in institutions for patients who possessed traits that could be passed through reproduction. During the time of eugenics, a young woman named Carrie Buck was sterilized in order to prevent passing on the traits that she and her mother possessed. Carrie and her mother were both institutionalized and considered “feeble minded”, therefore they were seen as unable to contribute to the procreation of the human race. These ideas of perfecting the human race resembled that of Hitler’s, as described in the Mein Kampf.

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In 1917, a law was passed creating the Oregon State Board of Eugenics. Eugenics is the concept of promoting people with sought after physical and mental traits to reproduce in order to enhance society. The board was allowed to sterilize inmates and patients in prisons and mental institutions, and if they could not reproduce, the thought was it would improve society. However, in 1983 the law was abolished. Sterilizing people does not stop the following generation from having physical or mental abnormalities nor does it prevent crime, using genetics to predict the mental state of future generations is not logical, and the sterilizations were unfair and inhumane.

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Many people have heard of eugenics, but they might not know that it is the catalyst for racism as we know it today. Eugenics is “the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable,” according to a Google search of the word. The idea was to improve the human race through selective breeding and other methods. Many believed in these ideas as well as Social Darwinism, which took Darwin’s theory of evolution and related it to humans. The main idea was the phrase “survival of the fittest,” which essentially meant that the people who become powerful in society gain that power because they are innately “better.”

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According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, eugenics is: “a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed”. ("Definition of Eugenics by Merriam-Webster") The most common example of this concept would be the Holocaust, which was the extermination of Jewish people and others deemed “unfit” for society in World War Ⅱ. But little do many know, the Nazi’s were not the only people practicing eugenics in the early 1900’s, eugenics was being practiced in the United States long before the Holocaust. The American Eugenics Society aimed to educate American people on the science of Eugenics.

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The impact of the inauguration of scientific beliefs and studies on eugenics in the 1800’s is still evident in modern United States today. Eugenics is defined as eugenicists promoting the naturally fit people who carried desirable traits to increase a population with hopes of a community filled with intelligent citizens. Positive eugenics advocated the superior people to marry each other and reproduce to create as many offsprings in order to increase the number of the fit. Negative eugenics would discourage the disabled from reproducing at all, so that they would not compete with the superior. The endorsement from the government allowed scientists to implement their ideas on eugenics and some aspect of their policies is used today.

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Eugenics is the science of using artificial selection to improve genetic features of the population. It is thought that improvement of the human race can be seen through sterilization of people who exhibit undesirable traits and selective breeding. Often called Social Darwinism, the concept was widely accepted during the time of World War I. It quickly became a taboo after World War II when Nazi Germany used it as an excuse for genocide. The thought of improving the human race by manipulating who is allowed to breed can either be appalling or compelling.

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Eugenics The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton. He defined it as the study of “the conditions under which men of a high type are produced” and also as “the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race”. However, it is not just a field of study and, could be taken as a social movement or policy as well. “Eugenics” may refer to the theory that infers hereditable intelligence and fortune which are possessed by the wealthy, successful and intelligent were made as a result of their good selective breeding, and that the lower classes would remain so because they continued to breed with other poor people from lower social classes or casts. Eugenics could be popular amongst people with a vested

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