No I’m not a fascist (at least I hope not…)
I’m trying to understand why we’ve normalised the idea of eugenics in dogs (e.g. golden retrievers are friendly and smart, chihuahas are aggressive, etc.)¹ but find the idea of racial classification in humans abhorrent.
I can sort of see it from the idea that Nurture (culture and upbringing) would have a greater effect on a human’s characteristics than Nature would.
At the same time, my family tree has many twins and I’ve noticed that the identical ones have similar outcomes in life, whereas the fraternal ones (even the ones that look very similar) don’t really (N=3).
Maybe dog culture is not a thing, and that’s why people are happy to make these sweeping generalizations on dog characterics?
I’m lost a little
1: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/df/74/f7/df74f716c3a70f59aeb468152e4be927.png
Ah yeah the Göttingen school of history, and the invention of various racial identities. It was popular all over Europe at the time, especially among the higher classes. I didn’t know about Brücher and Haeckel.
I guess there’s nothing wrong with selective breeding, as long as there’s no singular ideal “perfect race” to use as a caste system. In domesticated animals, the only caste that exists there is the ones we human impose based on market value, but not ones that the domesticated animals themselves would adhere to.
Yes. It wasn’t a uniquely German trend, although they applied it the most and thereby killed millions. The Americans also have their own gruesome history of human eugenics.