Transcript Science and Pseudoscience

Degeneration vs. Progeneration
Science and Pseudoscience
Cultural Origins of Degeneration
Theory

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: degeneration of the
aristocracy as moral, political, and social
critique: aristocracy mannered, decadent,
effeminate, immoral, diseased
 European Romanticism
-- association of madness and artistic
creativity
-- infatuation with Romantic science and
pseudosciences: physiognomy and
phrenology
Psychiatric Origins of Degeneration Theory:
Benedict-Augustin Morel (1809-1873)





Worked on theory of
degeneration 1839-1857,
publication of theory
dominated French psychiatry
for 100 years
Argued that mental illness and
social deviance hereditary:
acquired traits fixed in germ
plasm
Described 4-stage
progression of generational
degeneracy
No specific pathology passed
on; rather, susceptibility of
nervous system to
disturbances
Identified dementia praecox,
in 1908 renamed
schizophrenia
Influence of Morel’s theory
Interest in how toxic substances
(alcohol) affect progeny -- fetal alcohol
syndrome
 Established foundation for research in
eugenics, the improvement of human
(or a given race or ethnic group) by
means of control of fertility (Nazis)
 Many mental illnesses have hereditary
component, albeit genetic

Literary Origins of Degeneration
Theory: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)





Son of dissolute actor and
consumptive actress,
genius, alcoholic, drug
addict, syphilitic
Short stories portraying
crime, obsession,
madness, and delusion
Fall of the House of Usher
Interest in pseudosciences, phrenology and
physiognomy
Ignored in U.S., extremely
popular with French literary
avant-garde
Heirs to Poe’s literary degeneration

Charles Baudelaire,
poet, literary critic,
first modern poet -advocate of art for
art’s sake, author of
Les Fleurs du mal
 Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Poe favorite
American writer,
roman-feulliton
(crime, mystery)
Heirs to Morel’s degeneration theory:
Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)





Founder of Italian School
of Positivist Criminology
Popularized idea that
criminality is biologically
determined, that criminals
had devolved,
evolutionary regression
Born criminal identified by
atavistic stigmata that
could be detected and
measured
Believed that whites most
evolved
Women less criminal
because more passive
Max Nordau (1849-1923) Simon
Südfeld





Social critic, Zionist
leader
Entartung
(Degeneration), 1892
argued that civilization
itself was degenerating
Moral and social
critique of bourgeois
rationalist aimed at
conduct, morality, art of
new avant-garde
Freud first to challenge
degeneration theory
Irony: Jewish
proponents, Nazi
adherents