Talk:Man, the Unknown

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I read the book weeks ago, I didn't read anything about the use of gas chambers. Citation please.

I could not believe it myself so I searched and found a copy of the book online at http://quantumfieldtheory.org/ALEXIS%20CARREL%20Man%20the%20Unknown%201935.pdf, then searched within the book for all instances of "gas". Below (the 3rd paragraph) is the quote that led to this characterization in this article of Carell as a heartless eugenics supporter. I have kept the paragraphs around it so it can be understood in context. Carrel was for the diversity of human beings. He was however for the "disposal" of "criminals and lunatics" through "gases":

In recognizing personality, modern society has to accept its disparateness. Each individual must be utilized in accordance with his special characteristics. In attempting to establish equality among men, we have suppressed individual peculiarities which were most useful. For happiness depends on one being exactly fitted to the nature of one's work. And there are many varied tasks in a modern nation. Human types, instead of being standardized, should be diversified, and these constitutional differences maintained and exaggerated by the mode of education and the habits of life. Each type would find its place. Modern society has refused to recognize the dissimilarity of human beings and has crowded them into four classes--the rich, the proletarian, the farmer, and the middle class. The clerk, the policeman, the clergyman, the scientist, the school-teacher, the university professor, the shopkeeper, etc., who constitute the middle class, have practically the same standard of living. Such ill-assorted types are herded together according to their financial position and not in conformity with their individual characteristics. Obviously, they have nothing in common. The best, those who could grow, who try to develop their mental potentialities, are atrophied by the narrowness of their life. In order to promote human progress, it is not enough to hire architects, to buy bricks and steel, and to build schools, universities, laboratories, libraries, art institutes, and churches. It would be far more important to provide those who devote themselves to the things of the mind with the means of developing their personality according to their innate constitution and to their spiritual purpose. Just as, during the Middle Ages, the church created a mode of existence suitable to asceticism, mysticism, and philosophical thinking.

The brutal materialism of our civilization not only opposes the soaring of intelligence,but also crushes the affective, the gentle, the weak, the lonely, those who love beauty, who look for other things than money, whose sensibility does not stand the struggle of modern life. In past centuries, the many who were too refined, or too incomplete, to fight with the rest were allowed the free development of their personality. Some lived within themselves. Others took refuge in monasteries, in charitable or contemplative orders, where they found poverty and hard work, but also dignity, beauty, and peace. Individuals of this type should be given, instead of the inimical conditions of modern society, an environment more appropriate to the growth and utilization of their specific qualities.

There remains the unsolved problem of the immense number of defectives and criminals. They are an enormous burden for the part of the population that has remained normal. As already pointed out, gigantic sums are now required to maintain prisons and insane asylums and protect the public against gangsters and lunatics. Why do we preserve these useless and harmful beings? The abnormal prevent the development of the normal. This fact must be squarely faced. Why should society not dispose of the criminals and the insane in a more economical manner? We cannot go on trying to separate the responsible from the irresponsible, punish the guilty, spare those who, although having committed a crime, are thought to be morally innocent. We are not capable of judging men. However, the community must be protected against troublesome and dangerous elements. How can this be done? Certainly not by building larger and more comfortable prisons, just as real health will not be promoted by larger and more scientific hospitals. Criminality and insanity can be prevented only by a better knowledge of man, by eugenics, by changes in education and in social conditions. Meanwhile, criminals have to be dealt with effectively. Perhaps prisons should be abolished. They could be replaced by smaller and less expensive institutions. The conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to insure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gases. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts. Modern society should not hesitate to organize itself with reference to the normal individual. Philosophical systems and sentimental prejudices must give way before such a necessity. The development of human personality is the ultimate purpose of civilization.

13

The restoration of man to the harmony of his physiological and mental self will transform his universe. We should not forget that the universe modifies its aspects according to the conditions of our body. That it is nothing but the response of our nervous system, our sensory organs, and our techniques to an unknown and probably unknowable reality. That all our states of consciousness, all our dreams, those of the mathematicians as well as those of the lovers, are equally true. The electromagnetic waves, which express a sunset to the physicist, are no more objective than the brilliant colors perceived by the painter. The esthetic feeling engendered by those colors, and the measurement of the length of their component lightwaves, are two aspects of ourselves and have the same right to existence. Joy and sorrow are as important as planets and suns. But the world of Dante, Emerson, Bergson, or G. E. Hale is larger than that of Mr. Babbitt. The beauty of the universe will necessarily grow with the strength of our organic and psychological activities.

So my conclusion is that Carrel was a man of his times as major scientific personalities were for eugenics, since it was considered a "common norm" of the intelligentsia of the times, but he probably was not aware, and would not be in favor, of his book being used among others by the Nazi propaganda machine to justify the killing the Jewish population. However as an important author of his times he should have exercised self restraint before asserting that those that "despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters should also be should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gases." Just by itself this assertion seems totally absurd in today's western society values. However for an important author to say that without measuring the impact of his words in the near and distant future indicates that he was not reasoning properly when he wrote it. Most likely he let emotions play a role in writing the paragraph, and while aiming towards "lunatics and criminals" he threw the baby out with the water concerning individual liberties. Dictators everywhere (including the Inquisition) could easily use those two categories to kill political enemies. I am glad Mr. Carrel was not among those who wrote the Constitution, since it takes a special kind of person to write something that is timeless, and this book was definitely the opposite, it was a piece of its time.108.90.1.217 (talk) 17:56, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Carrel advocates for the killing of the criminally insane, and of dangerous criminals (regardless of the classification as insane). The mention of "gases" is in passing, as a reference to a method of execution considered humane. The reference to "scientific racism" is completely inapproriate, as race isn't even alluded to, the topic is insanity and criminality. The emphasis on the "gases" is just there to artificially invoke a connection to the Nazi gas chambers. The ideological connection is of course there, but it isn't about the "gases", it is found in his recommendation of euthanasia in the 1936 preface to the German edition. The proper related topic here is Nazi eugenics and not gas chamber. --dab (𒁳) 08:57, 18 August 2020 (UTC)