1 Improving on Nature: Eugenics in Utopian Fiction Submitted by Christina Jane Lake to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English, January 2017 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright materials and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approve for the award of a degree by this or any other university. (Signature)............................................................................................................. 2 3 Abstract There has long been a connection between the concept of utopia as a perfect society and the desire for perfect humans to live in this society. A form of selective breeding takes place in many fictional utopias from Plato’s Republic onwards, but it is only with the naming and promotion of eugenics by Francis Galton in the late nineteenth century that eugenics becomes a consistent and important component of utopian fiction. In my introduction I argue that behind the desire for eugenic fitness within utopias resides a sense that human nature needs improving. Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) prompted fears of degeneration, and eugenics was seen as a means of restoring purpose and control. Chapter Two examines the impact of Darwin’s ideas on the late nineteenth-century utopia through contrasting the evolutionary fears of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (1872) with Edward Bellamy’s more positive view of the potential of evolution in Looking Backward (1888). Chapter Three uses examples from three late-nineteenth-century feminist utopias to highlight the aspirations within these societies to use science to transform women’s social position and transcend the biological determinism of their reproductive role. Chapter Four focuses on the social theory and utopian fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman to illustrate how eugenics becomes part of her vision of progress for women and the human race as a whole. Chapter Five turns to dystopian fiction from H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Charlotte Haldane and Katherine Burdekin to examine how eugenic ideas retained an element of idealism even in the context of the dystopias of the first half of the twentieth century. Chapter Six looks at the fate of eugenics in utopian fiction after the Second World War and argues that the resurgence of utopianism in the form of the ecological utopia continue to rely on eugenics, population control and manipulation of human behaviour to succeed. My conclusion argues that eugenics is a utopian idea with enduring appeal despite the disastrous effects of its practical implementation, and that utopian and dystopian fiction offer an important lens through which to understand the hopes and fears represented by the different versions of eugenics and the current debates over genetic enhancements and transhumanism. 4 Acknowledgements My thanks go to the many people who have supported me in this project. To my supervisor Professor Angelique Richardson for guiding me through the many ethical pitfalls of writing about eugenics, and her valuable input into the development of my ideas and the direction of my research. To both my second supervisors, Dr. Adeline Johns Putra for her encouragement and advice in the difficult early stages of the thesis and Dr. Jason Hall for his enthusiasm and useful comments as it progressed. I’m also grateful for the support from the small but ever helpful Humanities PGR community at Penryn, in particular Rebecca, Andy and Jack, as well as my colleagues in the library, all of whose interest in the project have kept me going. Finally my partner Doug deserves credit for his patience and forbearance during the long six year journey to completing this PhD. 5 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4 Table of Contents 5 1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 7 1.1 Eugenics and Utopian Fiction 8 1.2 What is Utopian about Eugenics? The Utopianism of Eugenics 14 1.3 Improving on Nature 27 1.4 Argument and Methods 34 2. Darwin Among the Utopians……………………………………….…..… 41 2.1 Survival of the Fittest: Evolution in Utopian Fiction 42 2.2 Butler among the Machines 47 2.3 The Erewhonian Standard 55 2.4 Butler versus Darwin 62 2.5 Bellamy and Positive Evolution 67 2.6 Unnatural Selection: Utopia and Eugenics 76 3. Eugenics in Late-Nineteenth-Century Feminist Utopias…………….. 79 3.1 Amazons, Science and Common Sense 81 3.2 Evolution and Female Superiority in Mary E. Bradley Lane’s Mizora 95 3.3 Unveiling a Parallel: Equality, Cupid’s Garden and Moral Evolution 105 3.4 Conclusion 114 4. Making Better People: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Social Evolution ………………………………………………………………….…… 117 4.1 Tearing off the Top Pattern: the Road to Reform Darwinism 118 4.2 Women and Economics: Gilman’s Dystopian Narrative 123 4.3 Gilman’s Utopian Lands 132 4.4 Gilman and Race 135 4.5 Gilman’s Eugenic Reputation 142 6 5. Eugenics and the “Dystopian Turn” ………………………………..… 158 5.1 H. G. Wells and the Modern Dystopia 160 5.2 Wells, Eugenics and the Death of the Over-Man 172 5.3 Eugenics and the Scientific State 178 5.4 Swastika Night and Nazi Eugenics 191 5.5 Conclusion 198 6. Eugenics in Eden: the Rise of the Post-War Ecotopia………….… 201 6.1 Eugenics and environmentalism after the Second World War 203 6.2 Walden Two: A Green Dystopia? 207 6.3 Aldous Huxley’s Island and the Path to Ecological Enlightenment 219 6.4 Back to Nature: Callenbach’s Ecotopia 234 6.5 Conclusion 246 7. Conclusion……………………………………………………………….. 249 7.1 Sexual reproduction and the 1970s Feminist Utopia 251 7.2 More than Human: Perfect bodies and perfect minds 258 7.3 Some Final Thoughts 265 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………. 269 7 1. Introduction Historically there has always been a tension between the idea of the perfect society and the reality of human behaviour. Eutopia, the good society, is also outopia, nowhere land, a recognition that the perfect society cannot exist in our present world. However, by the nineteenth century, social reformers, inspired by revolutionary ideals and the scientific advances of the day, believed that utopia could be created in the real world. Real utopians communities such as New Lanark or Brook Farm testify to this. But so also do the works of utopian fiction of this era, which whilst retaining fantastical and satirical trappings, focus largely on social reform. Scientists too thought utopia might be achievable. Eugenics, the movement for improving the genetic quality of human populations through directed breeding, offered the hope of creating better people to make utopian ideas a reality. Francis Galton, who coined the term “eugenics” in 1883, suggested that watching for opportunities to intervene in the process of evolution could ensure that “the Utopias in the dreamland of philanthropists may become practical possibilities” (“Presidential” 12). Alongside the drive to make utopian dreams a reality, late-nineteenth-century writers of utopian fiction were confronted with the implications of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871) which changed the popular perception of humans from divinely created beings to malleable, ever-evolving descendants of animals. The concept of evolution troubled the imagination of writers such as Edward Bulwer- Lytton, Samuel Butler and H. G. Wells, calling into question the inevitability of progress. Evolution by natural selection appeared random and purposeless, leading to fears of degeneration, a discourse popularised in Ray Lankester’s Degeneration: A Chapter in Darwinism (1880) and Max Nordau’s Degeneration (1892). Worse still, the citizens of utopia might not even be human, but the super-evolved descendants of humanity, to whom humans would merely be equivalent to primitive animals. All these elements led to an interest in controlling evolution and harnessing its powers for utopian ends, through replacing natural selection with artificial selection. It was felt that if farmers could improve their stock by breeding from their best animals, then humans could potentially do the same by encouraging the best people to breed. The idea was not new. Plato suggested it in The Republic, and the nineteenth-century Oneida Community attempted to 8 put it into practice under the earlier name of stirpiculture. What was new about Galton’s eugenics was that it put the breeding of humans on an apparently scientific basis, backed up by a whole statistical machinery of tables and formulae from the Eugenics Laboratory (founded in 1907) and the academic credibility of a Chair of Eugenics at University College London, from 1911 onwards. Eugenics was also taken up by social reformers who lobbied for eugenic policies to encourage the fit to breed more and the weak and feeble- minded to breed less. Writers of utopian fiction experimented with these ideas in their work, hoping to force evolution into an upward trajectory which would back up their social imaginings. Eugenics also appealed to the imagination of female writers of utopian fiction, offering women an important role in the evolution of the human race as wives and mothers, and also through their political aspirations to create a more moral society which would promote the mental and physical health of future generations. In my thesis, I explore the connection between the concept of utopia as a perfect society and eugenics, with its negative connotations and horrific consequences when applied in the real world. I argue that utopian ideas helped form eugenics and that eugenic ideas circulating within utopian and dystopian fiction from the late nineteenth century onwards supported the idea that eugenics would improve society. I see utopian fiction as a valuable parallel record to the scientific and social texts on eugenics.