George Bernard Shaw and Eugenics

[IHateCorporations]

I have heard the accusation from a "Libertarian" that George Bernard Shaw was a Socialist who believed in sending innocent people to gas chambers.

How should I respond to this?

[LevSinestra]

GBS was a Socialist but first he was an Artist who enjoyed shocking people and being the center of attention more than anything else. He said and wrote many things when taken out of context would seem odd in an ordinary conversation or serious discussion.

But did he advocate sending innocent people to the gas chamber? I doubt it, GBS was an anti-vivesectionist, he abhored cruelty to animals so he would not be likely to advocate cruelty to humans.

Your title links GBS to Eugenics. He was an advocate of eugenic reproduction. This does not mean he advocated killing people only that he believed reproduction should be controlled. Eugenics became twisted in the popular mind later particularly (but not exclusively) due to the Nazis' extermination of people. Eugenics as GBS understood it was not identical to Euthanasia nor to genocide.

A good Shavian retort would be to deny Shaw wanted to kill anyone, and even if he did that does not logically follow that all Socialists would, unless, of course, the victims were Libertarians and then an exception could be made :)

[Catmatic Leftist]

George Bernard Shaw was a big fan of Jonathan Swift style satire and tons of tongue-in-cheek humor; you cannot read his works literally. Call him out for being a moron and misinterpreting his works.

Also, he was a reformist, and not a real communist.

[Red Commissar]

It's become fashionable as of late for wingtards to go look up the activities of various members of the Fabian Society- Shaw included- and try to take nasty stuff about them and go from there.

This is probably an exaggeration of his eugenics views that give him a lot of trouble. He did mention at one point during a "Eugenics Education Society" meeting about having to use chambers to kill people unfit for society, but he was using it as a way to satirize those who exaggerated what the views of Eugenics supporters like him were- ie to kill the unfit. At the time he made this comment it caused a similar response by the media, with only a few understanding the staire behind it. Years after this happened and years after his death, it still continues to expose morons who can't think critically.

Afiretruckyouth brings up the case of Johnathan Swift and that is a good example of what Shaw did a lot including with that comment. For example, look at Swift's work "A Modest Proposal", and you'll see that he suggests the Irish should solve their economic and famine issues by selling their children as food. He didn't mean this of course but more as a way of mocking those who weren't paying attention to the plight of the poor and took a detached way of looking at the situation.

Now the other thing is that "Eugenics" beliefs weren't something exclusive to members of the Fabian society, socialists, or anyone else. It seemed to be an idea that had some weight among many people in the early 1900s with the excitements coming off advances in medicine and/or fears of the "white race" dying off depending on the person you went to.

[NewSocialist]

I have heard the accusation from a "Libertarian" that George Bernard Shaw was a Socialist who believed in sending innocent people to gas chambers.

How should I respond to this?

G.B. Shaw usually ridiculed eugenicists who supported the forced sterilization of people (negative eugenics) and instead favored positive eugenics. Shaw also made apologies for Hitler and Mussolini's regimes at times, but he wasn't Anti-Semitic at all. In one of his biographies (Socialism and Superior Brains by Gareth Griffith) Shaw is quoted as having said "The only fundamental and possible Socialism is the socialization of the selective breeding of Man" (p.57). At his worst he said "The majority of men present in Europe have no business to be alive; and no serious progress will be made until we address ourselves earnestly and scientifically to the task of producing trustworthy human material for society. In short, it is necessary to breed a race of men in whom the life giving impulses predominate, before the New Protestantism becomes politically practicable" (also p.57).

[ed miliband]

GB Shaw was scum though, let's not even attempt to defend him. If anything we should point out that for all their attempts to claim the mantle of rationality and reasonableness in the face of crazy communist, anarchists, etc., social democracy has had more than its fair share of complete nutters. (And let's not forget that the British Union of Fascists even had its roots in the Fabian Society!)

His notion of socialism was not the liberation of workers by themselves, for themselves; it was a slow, gradual process lead by enlightened individuals who knew exactly what was best for the masses. There's no reason why such a worldview should not give way to a belief in eugenics, but there's also no reason to smear communists and socialists with GB Shaw's brush; his socialism has very little in common with socialism as we understand it.

[Red Commissar]

GB Shaw was scum though, let's not even attempt to defend him. If anything we should point out that for all their attempts to claim the mantle of rationality and reasonableness in the face of crazy communist, anarchists, etc., social democracy has had more than its fair share of complete nutters. (And let's not forget that the British Union of Fascists even had its roots in the Fabian Society!)

His notion of socialism was not the liberation of workers by themselves, for themselves; it was a slow, gradual process lead by enlightened individuals who knew exactly what was best for the masses. There's no reason why such a worldview should not give way to a belief in eugenics, but there's also no reason to smear communists and socialists with GB Shaw's brush; his socialism has very little in common with socialism as we understand it.

Yeah but if he's arguing with a Lolbertarian who might see Hitler as a socialist, it becomes difficult to say "Well x wasn't a real socialist!". It's better in these cases to destroy the foundation of the argument before it festers too long. If someone who genuinely leaning towards socialist comes up and claims that Shaw was a good socialist, then we should come in show what his real views were more like.

[Rafiq]

So would that apply to hitler too......?