The Rise of
Materialistic Scientism in the United States
©1995 T.D. Hall, Ph.D.
The United States
American Civil War, or War of Secession, or War Between the States (1861-1865): At the heart of this unfortunate struggle, which practically extinguished the “light unto the world” of egalitarian republicanism, was the issue of national sovereignty. The North maintained that the Union was indissoluble, even though President Lincoln acknowledged the right of revolution: “This country, with it’s institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it and overthrow it.” The South maintained, on the basis of the doctrine of “States Rights,” that the Union was very dissoluble, being no more than a combination of independent commonwealths.
The disagreement between North and South was complicated greated by the issue of slavery, a ghastly influence from the British Empire. From the point of view of “founding philosophy” (Deism, etc.), the North had the progressive position, but at the same time, the position of the South had validity. The existence of slavery was a prima facie violation of egalitarian republicanism, as it was a basis of a class system in a country that had outlawed classes. To avoid confronting the issue, the South defined the blacks as “property,” rather than as human beings. Nevertheless, the political position of the South had merit, as the republic was in fact shifting from its original egalitarian basis to an oligarchical (elitist) basis. The South was on the way to becoming the economic slave of the North. All questions of “karmic justice” aside, the South was correct in its insistence that an agreement of political union is conditional upon the continuing agreement of the parties involved. Agreements made by one generation are not written in stone for all subsequent generations to follow.
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine, in The Rights of Man, had been most convincing on the issue. In this connection, the example of Jefferson is most interesting. Jefferson always down-played the importance of the federal government; in summarizing his life, for instance, he indicated that his most important contribution to humankind was his founding of the University of Virginia. In any event, the chief result of the Civil War was that the United States shifted from its egalitarian basis, and fell more into the hands of the oligarchs. The current self-image of the United States as “Great World Power” would be regarded by the Founders as an aping of the old British Empire. The egalitarian spirit is very favorable to the growth of true science [many of the Founders were inventors as well as law makers]. We will never know how many brilliant young scientists were killed at Shiloh, Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Perhaps one who could have offered a successful rebuttal of Darwinism. For a long time after the War, the voice of science in America was silent. The old enemy, elitist Britain, was to become the “role model” for the rest of the nations.
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924): President of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey, and 28th president of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson was a man of enormous ability. He was a scholar as well as an adminstrator, and among the books he wrote is one called Constitutional Government in the United States. For all his erudition, Wilson failed to grasp the essential feature of the American Systen--that sovereignty is vested in the people. An elitist by nature and background, Wilson believed that sovereignty belongs “in the hands of the experts,” and he was of course encouraged in this belief by Colonel House (who is also discussed in this narrative), who became, curiously, a kind of father figure to Wilson. Wilson’s paternalism (elitism) was a weakness, the Achilles’ heel that gave House and others an opportunity to manipulate him. In Europe, Wilson is remembered as founder of the League of Nations. The United States Senate, objecting to participation in the League of Nations on the grounds that it involved a surrender of national sovereignty, refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League as part of the overall peace plan--a plan which also levied penalties against Germany many felt were unwarranted. A separate peace was made with Germany in 1921. In an effort to build popular support for the League of Nations, Wilson undertook a strenuous national speaking tour. He collapsed midway in the tour, and never recovered. From the time of Wilson’s collapse (1919) to the end of the administration (1921), the country was in the capable hands of Edith Wilson, the president’s wife.
Global Socialism
The War of the Nations (World War I): In terms of the prevailing social theory (Social Darwinism), the First World War was a grand test of fitness and an important regulator of populations (Malthus). Even the least involved of the nations, the United States, had 25% of its male population between 18 and 31 in uniform by the time of the armistice. From the point of view of Colonel House and associates (global socialists), the war was “proof unto the world” that nations, like individuals, are unprincipled, dark and dangerous, and that a mechanism of “international governance” is “required” in order to “maintain world peace.” Of course, wars and conflicts are contrived in order to provide “proof “ of this definition of society to society. The global socialists achieved what they set out to achieve--the League of Nations, a mechanism “international governance,” which was the precursor to the “United Nations.” It must be remembered always that the character of an institution is a reflection of the paradigm(s) on which it is based. A “United Nations” based on materialistic scientism is one thing (a world police organization); a “United Nations” based on the emerging paradigm (scientific holism) would be a very different organization, something more on the order of a grand cultural and technological exchange forum, and a mechanism for rebuilding beautiful cultures (such as the Cambodian or Tibetan culture) that were largely destroyed in our era.
The Great Depression
The Great Depression (1929-1941): The Great Depression was economic war. The aggressors were the global socialists, who controlled key economic institutions (such as the Federal Reserve), and the targets were any and all powerful people and enterprises that stood in opposition (or potential opposition) to the program of global socialism. This depression was the chief mechanism by which the United States was transformed from its original character (individualistic, egalitarian republicanism) into the current Welfare State.
Second World War
The Second World War: The program of global socialism requires not only the “levelling” of traditionally powerful forms of government, such as monarchy and egalitarian republicanism (the United States), it also requires the destruction of lesser (intermediate) forms of socialism. The main achievement of the Second World War was (from the point of view of the globalists) the discrediting and destruction of national socialism. Nazi Germany was financially supported by elements in the United States, as history records, in order to create an extreme form of national socialism, which would “demonstrate” to all the world that “a national socialistic elite” cannot be trusted. National Socialism is a monster. (Similarly, the “Cold War” concluded with the appearance of the “breaking apart” of an extreme of international socialism in the guise of the Sovet Union. All that is left is global socialism).
The Synthesis in 1947
“The Synthesis” (1947): At a conference held at the school where Woodrow Wilson was once president, Princeton University, biologists from various nations arrived at a consensus that the official evolutionary theory of the West would be the synthesis of classical Darwinism and modern genetics--”Neo-Darwinism.” In the words of Niles Eldredge: “ The Society for the Study of Evolution was founded in 1946. A milestone conference was held at Princeton in 1947, during which geneticists, paleontologists, systematists, and other biologists got together and agreed, in effect, that the Neo-Darwinian paradigm was both necessary and, in the main, sufficient to explain evolution...” [Reinventing Darwin, p.28] It was not a “milestone” conference, but a “millstone” conference; the millstone of Neo-Darwinism was hung around the neck of all those who had survived the “drowning in blood” that followed the triumph of classical Darwinism. The smoke of battle had hardly cleared, the upper air currents were still laden with the radioactive dust composed of the remains of the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... and the “elite of biology” confirmed as both necessary and correct the great principles that had put the world to war, the doctines of Hobbes, Malthus and Darwin.
The National Security Act of 1947
The National Security Act of 1947: Established an advisory council to the President which is, potentially, far more powerful than the presidency itself. The Act also fulfilled the dream of Colonel House, for the creation of an intelligence establishment comparable to, and allied with, the British intelligence system. Former intelligence and scientific personnel from Nazi Germany were incorporated into the American intelligence system immediately after the war, and this inclusion was one of the major motives behind the National Security Act, which created the CIA as an agency of the Executive Branch. For the second time in contemporary American history, a powerful collective “Agency” was created by government which is not responsible, in any meaningful sense, to that government. The first such “Agency” was the Federal Reserve.
The Eastern Trinity
The Eastern Trinity: Opinion leader institutions. Traditionally in the United States, the most prestigious “opinion leader” institutions are Harvard, Yale and Princeton. These are the institutions that establish “orthodoxies” in the sciences and “leadership” fields, i.e. law, business, etc. The acceptance of Darwinism, Social Darwinism and eugenics in the United States had to be preceded by acceptance of these principles by the “Eastern Trinity,” leading academic institutions which inevitably become forums for the discussion and dissemination of Darwinism. It goes without saying that they can be as influential in the dismantling of Darwinism as they were in its establishment.
Asa Gray
Asa Gray (1810-1880): The foremost American botanist of the late 19th century, Gray became Darwin’s leading disciple in the United States. In 1842, he accepted a life appointment at Harvard, and from that post preached “Darwinia” to the world. For many years, Gray’s botany textbooks were not only the standard books in American high schools, they were the only botany texts used at that pre-college level. Gray, a close friend of Darwin’s, was implicated (unwittingly) in the alleged Darwin-Lyell-Hooker conspiracy.
Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr (b.1904): A German-born American biologist steeped in the traditions of continental biology, Mayr held the Louis Agassiz chair at Harvard for a very long time. He continued the tradition of Asa Gray, becoming America’s “dean of Neo-Darwinism.” He has been retired for some years, but is still active as a writer, promoting the “gospel” of “natural selection.” Mayr is best known for his work in the fields of classification, population genetics (consequences of heredity on a population), and evolution. His major works include Evolution and the Diversity of Life (1976), Populations, Species and Evolution (1970), and Toward a New Philosophy of Biology (1988).
B.F. Skinner
B. F. skinner (1904-1990). Behaviorism is the philosophy of 'behavior analysis,' the science of behavior. Skinner's pioneering laboratory work established the research paradigm and the branch of behavioral science that is called the 'experimental analysis of behavior.' The basic idea is that behavior, including human behavior, can be the subject of natural science. Hence, the principal goal of behavior analysis is the prediction and control of behavior. Skinner received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1931. By 1938, he was among the leading researchers on animal behavior. Later, Skinner and a great number of behavior analysts around the world have conducted experiments on increasingly complex behavior-environment interactions in animals and humans. Basic behavior-analytic principles have been extended to applied work and to the interpretation of complex performances, such as language. 'Radical behaviorism' - Skinner's refined version of earlier behaviorist philosophy - is the philosophy of a science of behavior treated as a subject matter in its own right apart from internal explanations, mental or physiological. Skinner has been called the Darwin of psychology - because of the parallels between operant reinforcement and natural selection: The principle of selection by consequences. Skinner felt a deep concern for how behavioral science could be utilized to the best for the people. He said: "I think that a science of behavior is just as dangerous as the atom bomb. It has the potential of being horribly misused." Skinner suggested that the misuse of science can best be prevented by educating people in behavior analysis, and by applying behavioral science even to a governmental design which will have some control over all destructive instruments.
William Graham Sumner
William Graham Sumner (1840-1910): Sumner advocated the concept of “survival of the fittest” in society. Hofstader summarizes Sumner in these terms: “ The most vigorous and influential social Darwinist in America ... Sumner not only made a striking adaptation of evolution to conservative thought, but also effectively propogated his philosophy through widely read books and articles, and converted his strategic teaching post in New Haven (Yale University) into a kind of social Darwinian pulpit. He provided his age with a synthesis which, though not quite as grand as Spencer’s, was bolder in its stark and candid pessimism. Sumner’s synthesis brought together three “great” traditions of Western capitalist culture: the Protestant ethic, the doctrines of classical economics, and Darwinian “natural selection.” Correspondingly, in the development of American thought, Sumner played three roles: he was a great Puritan teacher, an exponent of the classical pessimism of Ricardo and Malthus, and an assimilator and popularizer of evolution...” [Social Darwinism and American Thought, p.51] During the Civil War, wealthy friends (William and Henry Whitney) secured a substitute to fill in Sumner’s place in the Union Army, and provided Sumner with the funds to study theology in Geneva, Gottingen and Oxford. In 1872, Sumner was elevated to the post of Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale College, where he developed a wider following than any other teacher in the history of Yale [p.53]. Sumner derived the major premises of his social philosophy from Herbert Spencer. Like Darwin, he went to Malthus for the first principles of his system. In all, Sumner [and later Yale Univerisity] played a key role in the synthesis of traditional religion and Scientism. Currently, Yale in an important center for genetics and genetic engineering.
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations: Established on July 29, 1921 in New York City, the CFR was founded by a group feeling the need for a “world government” (global socialism). The founders included Colonel Edward House, Walter Lippmann, John Foster Dulles, and Allen Dulles (who would later become director of the CIA). Money for the founding of the CFR originated from the houses of Morgan and Rockefeller, Bernard Baruch, Paul Warburg, Otto Kahn, Jacob Schiff and others. The Council on Foreign Relations is essentially a “Scientism Club” for the assimilation of the “best and brightest” from American academe into International Corporate Capitalism elite. The CFR plays a role in America not unlike that played by the Royal Society in England. It is a club for opinion leaders. Though it has no official connection to the federal government, most key leaders in the government are members of the CFR.
Edward Mandell "Colonel" House
Edward Mandell “Colonel” House (1858-1938): Colonel House was a Texas plutocrat who blueprinted the conversion of the American System to state socialism. He was the “kingmaker” behind Woodrow Wilson, and for many years Wilson’s chief advisor. House was one of the most influential men in 20th century American history, and one of the most shadowy. At the prompting of House, a direct line was established between the White House (and the Colonel House) and British Intelligence, in the person of Sir William Wiseman (1885-1962), and this connection became the precursor of the OSS and the CIA. Via this line, the British worked successfully to influence the United States to enter the First World War. A group of “experts” put together by House and called “The Inquiry,” a precursor of the Council on Foreign Relations, accompanied Wilson to the peace conference at Versailles. Colonel House also played a key role in the development and passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which resulted in the transfer of control of the money system (a public resource under the Constitution) to private banks. Supposedly, the Federal Reserve System was established “to stabilize the economy”--an economy that in fact had been deliberately de-stabilized by those wishing to institute the Federal Reserve System. [Editor: Fifteen years after it was established, those in control deliberately precipitated the collapse of the American economy in order to present an “I told you so” picture to the American public.] This triggered a worldwide economic depression. Currently, the people of the United States owe the consortium over $4 trillion. When the Federal Reserve System was established, the United States had no debt. Lack of understanding of these basic principles is how the American people can be drawn into discussions about “balancing the budget”, when it fact all it would take to totally eliminate the national debt to the Federal Reserve would be to renationalize the Federal Reserve System under United States control. In his final years, Wilson repudiated House and regretted the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. Wilson had killed that which he loved the most, the American Republic, and that knowledge no doubt added to the great emotional agony President Wilson endured in his last years.