In my book Modern Fascism, I explore the way various still-respectable strains of modern and post-modern thought–such as certain strains of Romanticism, existentialism, and liberal theology–came together in the various Fascist movements of the early 20th century. Last weekend I met Robert Zubrin and heard him speak on what the various “anti-human philosophies” that grew up around Darwinism, eugenics, and radical environmentalism. He too makes the connections to Fascism, overlapping with and adding to some of my findings. (This is NOT what has been called the argumentum ad Nazium rhetorical fallacy. We’re talking about actual connections, as in individual thinkers who had actual connections to the Nazi party.) Dr. Zubrin goes on to show how these anti-human philosophies are at work today.
Dr. Zubrin, a nuclear scientist and aerospace engineer, is the author of Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism (New Atlantis Books)
There was a time when humanity looked in the mirror and saw something precious, worth protecting and fighting for – indeed, worth liberating. But now we are beset on all sides by propaganda promoting a radically different viewpoint. According to this idea, human beings are a cancer upon the Earth, a species whose aspirations and appetites are endangering the natural order. This is the core of anti-humanism.
Merchants of Despair traces the pedigree of this ideology and exposes its deadly consequences in startling and horrifying detail. The book names the chief prophets and promoters of anti-humanism over the last two centuries, from Thomas Malthus through Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore. It exposes the worst crimes perpetrated by the anti-humanist movement, including eugenics campaigns in the United States and genocidal anti-development and population-control programs around the world.
