The culture of death began as an academic exercise
by Felipe E. Vizcarrondo, MercatorNet:
In 1803 Thomas Robert Malthus, an English clergyman who was concerned about the origins of poverty, published an Essay on the Principle of Population. This was a moment when the world’s population was increasing at a faster rate than it had in the past and some people were concerned about overpopulation.
Malthus had a novel idea: that the growth of the population would eventually outstrip the growth of resources needed to support the increasing number of people, especially food resources. He was convinced that population was growing exponentially and doubling every 25 years, while food resources could only increase arithmetically in the same time.
Malthus deplored the large families of the poor and held that the tendency of the working classes to reproduce was largely responsible for their poverty. The large numbers of dependent poor would eventually put a strain on the state and result in bankruptcy. He advised a decrease in population growth through abstinence and delayed marriage. He also advocated the use of artificial methods of contraception as he believed abstinence would not always be observed.
About 50 years later, in 1859, Charles Darwin published his masterpiece, The Origin of Species. Darwin is said to have been influenced by Malthus’ writing. Darwin’s theory of evolution reversed the Judeo-Christian doctrine of the fall of man from perfection as a consequence of man’s transgression, to a quest for perfection through natural selection. Natural selection would result in the survival of the strong and fit and the elimination of the weak and vulnerable, who would die out naturally. Their passing was essential for progress. Death became an essential element for making humanity better by improving the lineage.
The eugenics movement, an offspring of Darwinism, developed in Europe by the late 1800s. In Great Britain, Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, introduced the concept of eugenics as a science. Eugenicists argued that many of the maladies of man were due to inferior inherited traits. They encouraged the fit middle and upper classes to have large families; the unfit, poor, especially minorities and immigrants, were to breed less.
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