Georges Vacher de Lapouge

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georges Vacher de Lapouge (born December 12, 1854 in Neuville-de-Poitou , Vienne ; died February 20, 1936 in Poitiers , Vienne) was a French lawyer , librarian , racial theorist, and eugenicist . He was an ideologue of racism who developed the racist theories of Count Gobineau (1816-1882) in the late 19th century . As a supporter of the theory of social Darwinism , he founded the so-called anthroposociology at the same time as the German Otto Ammon (1842–1916) (see also under “ social anthropology ”).

Live and act

Georges Vacher de Lapouge was born in the small French town of Neuville-de-Poitou in the Vienne department. He lost his father when he was twelve. Since he did not attend primary school, he learned to read and write from his mother, Marie-Louise-Augustine Hindré. After attending a Jesuit school in Poitiers and the Lycées there , he studied law at the University of Poitiers and was awarded a gold medal in 1877 for a work on the inheritance action ( pétition d'hérédité ). In his dissertation from 1879 he dealt with the inheritance theory of generalized positive law .

In the following years he began a legal career that led him first as a substitute to Niort ( Deux-Sèvres ), then as a public prosecutor to Le Blanc ( Indre ) and Chambon-sur-Voueize ( Creuse ). However, since he did not like the legal practice, he resigned in 1883 and moved to Paris , where, after an unsuccessful attempt at agrégation between 1883 and 1886, he studied at the École pratique des hautes études , the École du Louvre and the Assyrian School of Oriental Languages , Ancient Egyptian , Hebrew , Chinese and Japanese while doing anthropological studies in the Natural History Museum . In Paris he was inspired by the theories of the British eugenicist Francis Galton (1822-1911) - the cousin and follower of Darwin - who had coined the term eugenics .

In 1886, Lapouge was appointed sub-librarian at the University of Montpellier and gave a course on anthropology at the natural science faculty there, but this was canceled in 1892. This was based, among other things, on Lapouge's socialist commitment: in 1890 he founded a local section of the Parti ouvrier français founded by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue in Montpellier and later joined the French section of the Workers' International , the predecessor of the French Socialist Party .

In the winter of 1890 he discovered the bones of the so-called Giant of Castelnau ( Géant de Castelnau ) in the Bronze Age cemetery of Castelnau-le-Lez . He was senior librarian at the University of Rennes until 1900 and then, until his retirement in 1922, at the University of Poitiers.

Known for his theory of racial inequality, he was a proponent of Social Darwinism in France who introduced the term eugénique ( eugenics ) to the French language .

His ideas were welcomed by authors such as George Bernard Shaw , Édouard Drumont and Georges Sorel , but were heavily criticized in scientific circles, especially by representatives of Durkheim's sociology . After his criticism of the supporters of Durkheim and the supporters of Alfred Dreyfus in the affair of the same name , he was denied career opportunities in French institutions from 1902 onwards. His candidacies were rejected several times, for example in 1909 when he applied for the chair of anthropology at the Paris Natural History Museum . On the other hand, he made ties to the United States and Germany .

In entomology he is known for his work on beetles .

His main work is considered L'aryen, son rôle social ( "The Aryans , its social role"), the "free course in on a civics held at the, University of Montpellier from 1889 to 1890", is based in Paris and appeared 1899th A German edition of the work, the translation of which was supported by Falk Ruttke , was published by Diesterweg in Frankfurt in 1939 under the title The Aryan and its significance for the community .

The racism and anti-Semitism researcher Pierre-André Taguieff , who counts Vacher de Lapouge together with the Swiss-US-American naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) as one of the “absolutely mixophobes”, subdivides mixophobia, i. H. the rejection and devaluation of racial merger, in the four positions: 1) absolutely mixophobe (Vacher de Lapouge, Agassiz), 2) unconditional mixophile, 3) moderate mixophile, 4) moderate mixophobe (Gobineau, Le Bon ). Lapouge divided the Europeans into ruling "pointed heads" and ruled "round heads".

From 1927 on, Lapouge had numerous contacts with racist theorists on the other side of the Rhine , in particular with Hans Günther (1891–1968), Ludwig Schemann (1852–1938) and Paul Schultze-Naumburg (1869–1949).

Even if Lapouge's ideas were later no longer taken seriously by French science, they nevertheless influenced the pioneers of “ racial hygiene ” in the United States and the theorists of National Socialism in Germany. In Latin America, his theses formed the ideological basis of the “Raza chilena” by Nicolás Palacios (1854–1911) alongside those of other racial theorists . The aged Lapouge welcomed Hitler's seizure of power.

Werner Maser pointed out that Vacher de Lapouge's allegations The idea of ​​justice ... is a deception. There is nothing but violence and the race, the nation is everything (see also the section quotations) "since the time in Vienna in Hitler's thoughts and statements clearly demonstrable".

The French translation of the main work The Passing of the Great Race (1916) by the American Madison Grant (1865-1937) described as an admirable example of racist prejudice clad in a scientific guise by the anthropologist Alexander Goldenweiser (1880-1940) Preface. He also translated the lecture The monism as a link between religion and science. Confessions of faith by a naturalist from 1892 (Paris 1897) by the naturalist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) from the German Monist Union in Jena .

During the German occupation of France in World War II came the theories of Vacher de Lapouge in which racists and eugenicists Georges Montandon (1879-1944) and René Martial (1873-1955), the "experts on racial selection" under the Vichy government , posthumously to questionable honors. A camp for African soldiers was set up in his home village of Neuville-de-Poitou, a number of whom were to disappear from this place.

According to the professor of comparative literature at the Université Montpellier III (Université Paul-Valéry) Jean Boissel, Vacher de Lapouge should include the French writer Paul Valéry (1871-1945) - a student, collaborator, friend and admirer of Vacher de Lapouge - to the figure of Mr. Teste (in whose work La Soirée avec monsieur Teste / “The evening with Mr. Teste”). The writer heard Vacher de Lapouge at the University of Montpellier ( faculté des lettres ) from 1888 to 1892.

Quotes

(from: L'Aryen. Son rôle social )

L'individu est écrasé par sa race, il n'est rien. La race, la nation sont tout.

The individual is wiped out by his race, it is nothing. Race, nation is everything.

Le conflit des races commence ouvertement, dans les nations et entre les nations, et l'on se demande si les idées de fraternité, d'égalité des hommes n'allaient point contre des lois de nature. On commence à se douter que les sentiments ont juste une valeur sentimentale, que l'évolution des peuples est.

The racial conflict begins openly in the nations and between the nations, and one wonders whether the ideas of brotherhood and equality of men are not directed against the laws of nature. One begins to think that feelings have only a sentimental value and that the evolution of peoples is subject to immutable laws.

La politique sentimentale idéaliste du Christianisme a vécu. Aux fictions de Justice, d'Egalité, de Fraternité, la politique scientifique préfère la réalité des Forces, des Lois, des Races, de l'Évolution. Malheur aux peuples qui s'attarderont dans les rêves!

The idealistic, sentimental politics of Christianity has outlived itself. Scientific politics prefers the reality of forces, laws, races and evolution to the fictions of justice, equality and brotherhood. Bad luck to the peoples who stay too long in their dreams!

Publications (selection)

  • L'Aryen, son rôle social, cours libre de science politique, professé à l'Université de Montpellier (1889–1890) , Paris, A. Fontemoing, 1899. Digitized .
    • German translation: The Aryan and its meaning for the community. Free course in political science given at the University of Montpellier from 1889–1890 . Frankfurt: Moritz Diesterweg 1939. Translation: Käthe Erdniss ( table of contents )
  • Essais de droit positif généralisé. Théorie du patrimoine , Paris, E. Thorin, 1879. Digitized .
  • Études sur la nature et sur l'évolution historique du droit de succession. Étude première. Théorie biologique du droit de succession , Paris, E. Thorin, 1885
  • Les Sélections sociales, cours libre de science politique professé à l'Université de Montpellier, 1888–1889 , Paris, A. Fontemoing, 1896. Digitized .
  • The Fundamental Laws of Anthropo-sociology. In: Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 6, No. 1 (Dec., 1897), pp. 54-92
  • Old and New Aspects of the Aryan Question. In: American Journal of Sociology , Vol. 5, No. 3 (Nov. 1899), pp. 329-346.
  • L'anthropologie et la science politique. In: Revue d'anthropologie 16 (1887): 1422
  • Preface to the translation of: Ernst Haeckel lecture The monism as a link between religion and science. Confessions of faith of a naturalist from 1892 ( digitized version ): Le monisme, lien entre la religion et la science: profession de foi d'un naturaliste . Paris 1897 ( digitized version )
  • La Race chez les populations mélangées. in: Eugenics in Race and State , Vol. II, Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins 1923.
  • Foreword to the translation by: Madison Grant : Passing of the Great Race ( Le Déclin de la Grande Race , translated by E. Assire; Paris: Payot 1926)

See also

Remarks

  1. ^ Jean-Marie Augustin: Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854-1936). Juriste, raciologue et eugéniste . 2011 ( content , Philippe Poisson)
  2. ↑ "Prepare by Her lectures de Paul Broca (1824-1880), d ' Alphonse de Candolle (1806-1893) et de Clémence Royer (1830-1902), Lapouge devient l'un des premiers Diffuseurs, en France, de l' eugénique galtonienne, qu'il marie à la doctrine aryaniste, refondue sur des bases anthropométriques, et plus particulièrement craniométriques (la forme du crâne a pour lui plus d'importance que la couleur de la peau!). ”(Taguieff, 2005, cairn .info )
  3. ^ Jean-Marie Augustin: Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854-1936). Juriste, raciologue et eugéniste . 2001 ( on the content , by Philippe Poisson)
  4. ↑ cf. Les multiples facettes de Georges Vacher de Lapouge - lanouvellerepublique.fr (February 17, 2012, Jean-Michel Gouin): “Lapouge sera ainsi le premier à introduire dans la langue française le vocable« eugénique »qui fit ensuite florès.” - with the comment (to «eugénique»): “ensemble des méthodes qui visent à améliorer le patrimoine génétique de groupes humains en limitant la reproduction des individus porteurs de caractères jugés défavorables ou en promouvant celle des individus porteurs de caractères jugés favorables.”
  5. ↑ cf. Biographies of the world's entomologists: Vacher de Lapouge, Georges In: sdei.senckenberg.de , accessed on September 25, 2017.
  6. ↑ cf. Jennifer Michael Hecht, p. 352, note 113
  7. ↑ Taguieff, The Power of Prejudice , pp. 289–291 (quoted from Susanne Grunwald, p. 40). - Susanne Grunwald (p. 37) points out that as early as 1888 Vacher de Lapouge was one of those who propagated social inequality on the basis of 'racial' causes.
  8. ^ Benno Müller-Hill : Selection. The science of the biological selection of humans by humans. In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 137–155, here: p. 138.
  9. ↑ a b Vacher de Lapouge, socialiste-aryaniste français qui inspira Hitler - Une autre histoire, accessed on September 3, 2017.
  10. ↑ criminocorpus.hypotheses.org (accessed September 3, 2017)
  11. ^ Susanne Grunwald: José Martí and the Indiothematics of Nuestra América. Race - Category - Culture - Poetry. Dissertation Cologne 2013, p. 37
  12. ^ Benno Müller-Hill : Selection. The science of the biological selection of humans by humans. In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 137–155, here: p. 138.
  13. ↑ Timetable of a World Conqueror , Der Spiegel, August 8, 1966 - accessed on September 3, 2017
  14. ↑ Together with The Conquest of a Continent (1933).
  15. ^ A friend of the writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961), cf. Pierre-André Taguieff, Annick Durafou: Celine , la race, le Juif. 2017, note 108 ( partial online view )
  16. ↑ On the Neuville-de-Poitou camp in the Vienne , cf. Le camp de Neuville de Poitou dans la Vienne, un camp exhumé de l'oubli - vrid-memorial.com (accessed September 3, 2017)
  17. ^ La Soirée avec monsieur Teste at Wikisource
  18. ↑ Marc Laudelout (Ed.): Le Bulletin célinien , 1999, p. 27 ( partial online view ); see. Eveline Pinto (Ed.): L'écrivain, le savant et le philosophe. La littérature entre philosophie et sciences sociales. Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2003, p. 175, note 9 ( partial online view ).
  19. ↑ Pierre-André Taguieff: "Racisme aryaniste, socialisme et eugénisme chez Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936)." Revue d'Histoire de la Shoah 2005/2 (N ° 183) ( Online )
  20. ↑ George Vacher de Lapouge: L'Aryen. Son rôle social , Paris, A. Fontemoing, 1899, p. 511
  21. ^ Vacher de Lapouge: L'Aryen. Son rôle social , foreword, VII (Paris 1899) digitized
  22. ↑ German translation according to Susanne Grunwald, p. 39, note 199 (quoted there from Taguieff, Die Macht des Vorschlusses , p. 78).
  23. ^ Vacher de Lapouge: L'Aryen. Son rôle social , foreword IX (Paris 1899) digitized
  24. ↑ German translation according to Susanne Grunwald, p. 39, note 199 (quoted there from Taguieff, Die Macht des Vorschlusses , p. 78).
  25. ↑ On the Latin quotation Audax Japeti genus ( Horaz , Oden , 1,3,26) on the title page ( photo ), reproduction and translation of the text from gottwein.de (accessed on September 3, 2017):

    “Audax Iapeti genus
    ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit.

    The
    son of Japetus recklessly carried fire to the peoples through fraudulent deception "

literature

  • Pierre-André Taguieff: Sélectionnisme et socialisme dans une perspective aryaniste: théories, visions et prévisions de Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936) , Mil neuf cent , Année 2000, Volume 18, Numéro 1, pp. 7–51 ( digitized version )
  • Pierre-André Taguieff: "Racisme aryaniste, socialisme et eugénisme chez Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936)." Revue d'Histoire de la Shoah 2005/2 (N ° 183) ( Online )
  • Pierre-André Taguieff: The power of prejudice. Racism and its double. Hamburg: Hamburger Ed. 2000; La force du préjugé (German) ( Table of contents ; from the French by Lilian-Astrid Geese.)
  • Jean Colombat: La Fin Du monde civilisé: les prophéties de Georges Vacher de Lapouge . Paris, J. Vrin, 1946
  • Günter Nagel: Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936), a contribution to the history of social Darwinism in France . Freiburg i. Br. 1975; ISBN 3-87733-503-9 (Freiburg research on the history of medicine ; Vol. 4)
  • Seidler, Eduard / Nagel, Günter: "Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936) and social Darwinism in France." In: Biologism in the 19th century. Edited by Gunter Mann. Stuttgart 1973, pp. 94-107
  • Henri de La Haye Jousselin: Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936): essai de bibliographie . 1986 ( online excerpt )
  • Wolfgang Wippermann: Racial madness and belief in the devil . 2013 ( online excerpt )
  • Marco Schütz: Racial ideologies in social science . Bern [u. a.]: Lang, 1994
  • Jennifer Michael Hecht: The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism, and Anthropology in France . 2003, section: “No Soul, No Morality: Vacher de Lapouge” (p. 168 ff.) ( Online excerpt )
  • Jacques Julliard, Daniel Lindenberg, Pierre-André Taguieff: Autour de "La crise de la moral sexual" de Georges Vacher de Lapouge . Mil neuf cents . Année 2000, Volume 18, Numéro 1, pp. 191-210 Review
  • Stefan Kühl : The International of Racists. The rise and fall of the international eugenics movement in the 20th century. 2014 ( online excerpt ).
  • Mike Hawkins: Social Darwinism European Thought: Nature as Model and Nature as Threat . 2008 ( online excerpt )
  • Matsuo Takeshi (University of Shimane, Japan). L'Anthropologie de Georges Vacher de Lapouge: Race, Classe et Eugénisme (Georges Vacher de Lapouge anthropology) in Etudes de Langue et littérature Françaises, 2001, No. 79, pp. 47-57. ( Summary )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Vacher de Lapouge, Georges
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Georges de Lapouge
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French lawyer, racial theorist and eugenicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuville-de-Poitou ( Vienne department )
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1936
Place of death Poitiers ( Vienne department )