Don't Say Eugenics

How our reaction to viruses reveals the ableism in us all.

The internet has taught me many things; how to start a crochet project I will inevitably abandon, how much I can cry about ancient animals dying together in a burrow, and how persistent and well-accepted eugenics is in our society.

Now it’s usually around the time I drop the e word in casual conversations that people’s eyes glaze over and their feet start shuffling back. A comment section is irreparably derailed when eugenics enters the chat. You, yourself, might be considering closing the tab and calling it a day.

What’s so silly about these reactions is that I (or other disabled people like me) am rarely, if ever, the first one to bring it up. You are. And that’s because the lexicon of eugenics thinking is widespread, insidious, and learned. It rolls off the tongue or into the keyboard with such unconscious precision that any mention of its connection to its historical roots is met with immediate disavowment. But if writer Marie-Helene Bertino’s quote is to be believed—“what we love, we mention”—then y’all love eugenics.

Given our most recent past, nowhere is this love more apparent than how we collectively speak about viruses.

It’s there in RFK Jr. leading the MAHA charge against vaccines despite benefitting from them himself, and it’s there in wellness influencers tackling your post-viral fatigue by repackaging the Protestant Work Ethic as a manifestation series (for only $899!), and it’s there in the public health messaging that says “it only affects these people” that infers that these people might be an acceptable loss. (See: HIV, Monkeypox.) The name of this Substack is inspired by Dr. Fauci’s infamous “the vulnerable will fall by the wayside” quote for a reason.

But it’s not just people in charge or influencers with big platforms relying on the death of disabled people (and others) to earn money or political favor. It’s every day, in every conversation, in every political group. It’s everyone, it’s you, and it’s me, too.

Take for instance the sudden uptick in information and fear surrounding H5N1 (and then of course the sudden drop off in that information post January 20th). Though the virus has been known to be circulating farms in the US since early 2022, as the concern for a possible pandemic grows, so does the eugenicist language we use to control our fear of it. You need look no further than a comment section to see how quickly we devolve into language that cheers on the extinction of some in favor of our perceived safety and superiority.

A few weeks ago, I happened to stumble upon a comment written by someone we’ll call Dan. Dan shared the seemingly innocuous belief that at least those “stupid” enough to drink raw milk “will die out from bird flu.” Of course, to even debate this, you have to disregard the public of public health, that if the virus mutates to transmit human-to-human, and someone gets it because they chose to drink raw milk, all the people they inevitably infect may not be in the perceived subclass group of “stupid enough to deserve death” themselves, nor are any non-consensual participants in their homes, like kids. But let’s go ahead and pocket that away and focus on the specifics of the statement.

At least those stupid enough to drink raw milk will die out from bird flu.

It’s not an unfamiliar remark. You’ve probably said something similar. I have. “That’s Darwinism at its finest,” or “natural selection,” or “survival of the fittest.” And while I love a FAFO moment as much as anyone—I am deeply petty—this is not that. This is eugenics.

In the 1850s, English philosopher Herbert Spencer coined the term “survival of the fittest” a few years before Darwin published The Origin of Species. This may come as a surprise as many attribute that phrase to Darwin thanks to the theory that followed soon after, Social Darwinism. But it was Spencer who went after the “unfit” in man and society in his work, Social Statistics. Darwin, with a focus on natural selection in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, just liked to watch birds fuck.

According to Edwin Black in The War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, Spencer “declared that man and society were evolving according to their inherited nature. Through evolution, the ‘fittest’ would naturally continue to perfect society. And the ‘unfit’ would naturally become more impoverished, less educated and ultimately die off, as well they should.” Black goes on to explain that Spencer believed the “unfit” “were predestined by their nature to an existence of downwardly spiraling degradation.”

Thought leaders at the time of Spencer and Darwin distilled their work and the work of others into a new concept called Social Darwinism, which uses Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection to justify political, social and economic views including imperialism, colonialism, racism, and eventually—you guessed it—eugenics. According to Black, “social planners were rallying around the notion that in the struggle to survive in a harsh world, many were not only less worthy, many were actually destined to wither away as a rite of progress.”

In 1883, Darwin’s half-cousin, Sir Francis Galton, published Inquiries into Human Faculty and Development, launching a new “science” devoted to improving the human race by ridding society of its “undesirables.” (See: “unfit,” “feebleminded,” “stupid,” “parasite class.”) He called this pseudoscience eugenics.

Now, let’s swing back to Dan’s comment.

At least those stupid enough to drink raw milk will die out from bird flu.

When Dan, or any of us, casually talk about supposed “stupidity” dying off and leaving society and man better off, we are mirroring the language used by those who built the eugenics movement. And as U.S. Americans, we have a very problematic past with eugenics because, well… it’s ours.

While it was English philosophers that developed the concepts, it was U.S.America’s “wealthiest, most powerful and most learned men” that implemented the movement against “the nation’s most vulnerable and helpless,” according to Black. That group included immigrants, Black people, people of color, indigenous populations, low-income individuals, the mentally ill, and the emotionally, developmentally, and physically disabled. Often times these populations intersected with one another or, because of one (like race) were believed to be another (like developmentally disabled). If you look into the NFL’s recent past, this hasn’t necessarily changed. Talila A Lewis talks about this intersecting concept in the article, “why I don’t use ‘anti-Black ableism’ (& other language longings).”

So how did our most powerful men implement the movement? Through mass sterilization and involuntary incarceration of the “feebleminded,” as they were referred to by the Western State Hospital in Virginia, for one. While Western State had no definition of “feebleminded,” “county authorities were certain that the hill folk swept up in their raids were indeed mentally—and genetically—defective. As such, they would not be permitted to breed more of their kind,” according to War Against the Weak.

It was this rabid movement and our implementation of it across targeted populations that caught the attention of, and was soon adopted by, Adolf Hitler. But it was first and foremost ours. So much so that in 1934 Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of the same hospital mentioned above, complained that, “Hitler was beating us at our own game.” It wouldn’t hurt to remind you that Hitler went after disabled people first.

At this point you might be thinking, well obviously Dan did not mean that we should sterilize these people, just that ya know… we’d be better off if these people died out.

Yes. Exactly like the eugenicists mentioned above.

And before I continue, I want to make it clear that I’m not defending harmful people or their harmful thinking. I do not support or listen to people who peddle raw milk, push anti-vex rhetoric, support RFK, or voted for Trump. I am not defending the violence that spirals from their belief sets. My disdain for them literally keeps me up at night. I adamantly believe you can wish death on anyone almost entirely guilt-free. But when you wish death on them via deadly virus so that their perceived low IQ is wiped from society for its own betterment, the conversation goes from being about their harmful thinking to yours.

What I want you (and my guy Dan) to consider is that even those you deem “stupid” deserve the opportunity to not die from a preventable disease. That maybe the people you deem to lack critical thinking skills or media literacy or education are victims of the people at the top, just like you.

After all, how much of our thinking is really, totally in our control?

Is someone’s lack of knowledge always by choice? Could it be circumstance? Maybe you’re a naturally inquisitive person, but what if you weren’t? Is that curious nature luck? Or conditioning? A genetic predisposition to parse propaganda from reality or the natural result of access to higher education? What if you grew up in an insulated religious community and never had a chance to get out? What if your parents only ever watched one news channel growing up? What if your algorithm only showed you one version of reality? What if you really listened to a particular president? Is it completely someone’s fault they don’t know what you know? Or perhaps, at least in part, the result of America’s “wealthiest, most powerful and most learned men” who control our FYPs, our news stations, and our textbooks?

And since we’re here and talking about it, let’s look at this through the lens of viruses. If we know that COVID-19 is a brain-damaging disease (and we do), and we know that there is a certain group of people that are less likely to take precautions against catching it 4, 5, 8, 10 times due to some of the reasons listed above or because of circumstance (no sick days, doctors who don’t mask, lack of healthcare), are they totally in control of everything that comes after? Are they not now, possibly, a member of the disabled class? If they suddenly start drinking raw milk to cure this ongoing brain fog they’ve been experiencing that the Head of the HHS says is safer for them than the vaccines they think caused said brain fog in the first place, whose fault is that? Really? Does refusing to follow the science necessitate they suffer from disease? Does a lack of critical thinking mean they deserve death and we’ll all be better for it?

And before you say yes, I have one question for you. Do you still wear masks in public indoor spaces and crowded outdoor spaces to protect yourself and others against COVID-19?

When I asked Dan, he told me that he masked when he “felt sick.” Honestly, this is a noble answer. I applaud every single time someone breaks a possible mode of transmission, as every opportunity for the virus to mutate will only create further public health chaos down the road (as reflected in the currently mutating H5N1 virus).

But—

the science suggests that an overall estimate of 44.1% of COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic. So only masking when you feel sick is essentially goin’ off vibes. It is not factual. It is not using critical thinking. It is not based in science. It is opening you up to the same disabling brain damaging disease as everyone else. Dan, a man criticizing the critical thinking skills of others to a homicidal degree, has access to all the same science I do. Does he deserve death by preventable disease? Do you?

Listen, maybe a certain President told you the pandemic was over. Maybe you rejoiced with the airline stewards on your FYPs as they ripped their masks off mid-flight when mask mandates suddenly lifted (they didn’t happen to capture the scared, non-consenting immunocompromised person seated a few rows back). Maybe you watched the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, get on TV and tell you that 78% of vaccinated COVID deaths were people who were “already unwell to begin with” and that this was “really encouraging news.” Maybe you even liked it when The Toast podcast hosts talked ill of Long Covid patients, equating their struggles with a figment of their imagination, because the hosts, like you, couldn’t imagine experiencing an illness that never ends. Your world view just couldn’t include it.

And maybe you thought all of that sounded right because it was your President, your algorithm, your news station, your magical thinking.

Is all that your fault? Maybe. But maybe this information felt the most comfortable to you because your comfort is informed by the society around you—an ableist society that has taught you that you are above disability and therefore do not need to consider disability.

You need to know that there is some special thing about you that will keep you safe.

Have you ever heard of the Prosperity Gospel? It’s the Evangelical belief that god gives health and wealth to those with the strongest faith in him—a belief that often equates to thinking those that are sick must have done something to deserve it. And even if you don’t think that outright, you might think it a little. Otherwise, why would you (or Dan) wish a deadly virus on people who think bad things?

We’ve been conditioned (just like others have), in an ableist society, with a foundation built on the eugenics movement, to believe that we can somehow out-spend, out-perform, out-earn, and out-wit disability.

We need to know that there’s a reason that others get sick but we won’t. We need to know that we are the exception. We need to know that we can stop it—from beef tallow to essential oils to parasite cleanses. It’s why the global wellness industry was valued at $6.3 trillion in 2023 (compared to the global pharmaceutical industry worth $1.6 trillion). Nothing says “I am in control of my health” like an affiliate code. You just have to scroll through one of the many life coaches on Instagram to find out that more money and more health mean more favor and more spiritual alignment. We’re all just repackaging the same shit in order to outrun the inevitable.

And of course we are. Just like after the 1918 flu pandemic, which led to an increase in disability, an increase in far-right thinking, and the development of the U.S. eugenics movement (there was a false belief that survivors were genetically superior my god we are so predictable). We love to repeat ourselves. Loudly. And incorrectly!

I hate to break it you, but you cannot outrun disability. As disability advocate Samantha Jane Durán (aka adisabledicon on socials) said in a recent Threads post, “disability and chronic illness is a normal spectrum of the human condition.” And in the words of another disabled icon, Imani Barbarin (aka crutches_and_spice), “the only difference between you and me is luck and time.”

It is this reason that the eugenicists will never see their goals reached, in the literal sense. While they will work around the clock to dehumanize, disappear, and kill targeted groups, they can’t ever actually get rid of disability. It won’t die out until we all do.

And if you’ve gotten this far and you’re thinking “aren’t there more important things to be worried about than our language right now?” You’re right. There’s so much to worry about. Including the Trump regime’s targeting of disabled people in real time. We have seen this process before. When you start with disabled people, you get a society accustomed to an acceptable loss. And then they move the goals posts, just like the Nazis did. (This is not a Trump problem, this is an American problem. Biden abandoned us, too.) Since we know that disability is the largest minority group, intersecting with every other marginalized population and furthering their marginalization in the process, we know Trump’s plans include every other group you care about. To care about disabled people is to care about people. Including yourself.

That means fighting for—and listening to—disabled people. It means learning about Section 504 and contacting your attorney generals. It means calling your Senators to vote no on a budget that would gut medicaid. It means caring about bird flu when it impacts farmworkers, not just yourself, and advocating for increased testing, PPE, and education for those on the frontlines. It means supporting work from home policy indefinitely for all workers. It means wearing a mask to protect your neighbors. It means killing the eugenicist inside of you.

And if all of that seems like too much (we all have so very much we’re dealing with), the very least you could do is not equate your hatred of others with a hatred of disabled people through eugenicist tropes in your language choices.

If we want to fight fascism, we have to focus on who the real enemy is. Usually, it’s the people in power. And sometimes it’s the enemy inside ourselves. How has your ableist conditioning, informed by a society that built the eugenics movement, harmed your community? How has it harmed you?

Once again I am not advocating for working with or even being nice to people who do not see you as human. But their unnecessary deaths due to preventable diseases will not lead to a more progressed society. Only uncovering our biases and caring about each other can do that. Otherwise, we’re just shills for the U.S. American eugenic machine.

If what we love, we mention, then let me mention disabled rights one more time. Disabled rights are human rights are your rights.

Fix your heart or die.

-David Lynch