Intelligence and Genocides
S Krishnaswamy
ISRAELI officials are using dehumanising language to justify the ongoing horrifying genocide in Gaza. They paint Palestinians as morally and intellectually deficient. "We are fighting human animals," said Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, depriving Palestinians of their humanity and reiterating genocidal ideas. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a call to "Erase all of Gaza from the face of the earth." "There are no innocent people in Gaza," said Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of Israel Beytenu party. Benjamin Netanyahu implied that Palestinians were culturally and intellectually inferior when he said, "We are in a battle of civilisation against barbarism". Similar to the rationale employed by the Nazis and the US eugenics movement, this systematic dehumanisation – branding a group as less intelligent and human – is a horrifyingly familiar genocidal tactic.
BEHIND THE
GENOCIDES
Nazi Germany used "intellectual superiority" as a weapon to industrialise genocide long before Gaza. Their ideas were based on the US eugenics programme. In his 1925 book Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler laid the groundwork for his claim that Jews were naturally less intelligent or inferior, which was used as an excuse to kill them. Nazi ideas spread the myth that Aryans were biologically and intellectually superior, and they saw Jews, Roma, Slavs, and disabled people as threats because they were mentally defective. The Euthanasia Programme, or T4, which started in 1939, was the systematic murder of institutionalised patients with disabilities in Germany. This led to the killing of 250,000 disabled people because they were thought to be unworthy of life, and it gave the Holocaust's death camps a false scientific reason for their actions. Hitler praised US eugenics laws in Mein Kampf, which he used as a model for his racist policies.
The US blueprint used by the Nazi's was the early 20th-century eugenics movement. Eugenicists such as Charles Davenport, Harry Laughlin, and Madison Grant claimed that Northern Europeans possessed superior, inheritable intelligence. It was considered that Blacks, Native Americans, immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, the disabled, and the poor were intellectually and biologically inferior and posed a threat to the nation's "genetic stock". Black people were branded as "biologically inferior". In 1927, the US Supreme Court decided, by a vote of 8 to 1, to uphold a state's right to forcibly sterilise a person considered unfit to procreate. The case, known as Buck v. Bell, centred on a young woman named Carrie Buck, whom the state of Virginia had deemed to be "feebleminded." It was considered a victory for the eugenics movement. The result was that more than 70,000 individuals were forcibly sterilised. The alleged intellectual purity of the "superior" group was sought to be maintained by segregation legislation and biased policies such as the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. The myth of inborn differences in intelligence was utilised to dehumanise and eradicate.
The dangerous ideology is not confined to other lands. In India, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is built on the racist ideas of Golwalkar, its influential leader from the 1930s till his death in 1973. His book "We or Our Nationhood Defined”, inspired by Adolf Hitler, asserted India belongs to Hindus and that minorities should be treated like Nazis treated Jews, inextricably linking the RSS to fascist ideology. Golwalkar said Muslims could only stay in India if they accepted their inferior status. Then they can continue as subservient second-class citizens.
This manufactured hierarchy solidifies into a stark 'us versus them' divide, a mindset that leaves virtually no space for coexistence. It makes violence, segregation, and mass murder seem like necessary acts of protection or purification for the dominant group. Recognising a recurring pattern in statements from Israeli leaders, Hitler's Mein Kampf, US eugenicists, or Hindutva propaganda is not about simplistic equivalence; it is about identifying the dangerous false notion of "superiority" that enables atrocities and genocides.
EVOLUTION AND
INTELLIGENCE
Understanding intelligence from an evolutionary perspective helps to dismantle the myth of inherent group-based intellectual superiority. There is no superior or inferior intelligence. Intelligence in any living being is a dynamic response to environmental pressures, finding food, and reproducing. Darwinian evolution applies to species, not to a society within a species. Amongst random variations, those that help survival and reproduction are carried forward. In evolutionary terms, intelligence in a species is a dynamic response and a result of a dialectical process, in which the tension between constraints and innovations leads to diverse solutions that work.
Intelligence is not a ladder with humans at the top. It is more like a living coral reef branching in countless directions. The dialectic at play in nature shapes the solutions for each adaptation. Intelligence arises from the interplay between environmental pressures and biological constraints. In settings where adaptability is essential, intelligence emerges in unique and unexpected ways. Plankton that drift in oceans make basic decisions about depth and movement based on light and predators because their world demands it. Sea slugs have evolved to exploit the unique characteristics of forests of large algae known as kelp. With only 20,000 neurons, sea slugs learn and remember through habituation, enhancing their survival chances. The octopus evolved a large, complex brain. This is different from the vertebrate brain. In the absence of a shell to protect it, the octopus relies on its intelligence as its primary defence. Roughly two-thirds of the neurons are in the arms. This enables rapid, localised decisions and provides them the ability to wield tools or solve complex puzzles. Unlike in mammals, neurons are densely packed in the brains of crows and parrots. Their tool-making and problem-solving abilities rival those of the primates. Their intelligence is forged by the need for foraging, innovating, forming complex social bonds and developing their languages. Humans emerged from primates, encountering complex social and ecological puzzles. Intelligence helps them tackle group relationships, evolve languages and overcome challenges such as hunting, growing crops and tool use. Survival challenges in complex environments result in vastly different organisms finding similar solutions for learning and memory formation.
Recent research shows the convergence of evolution extends deep into brain architecture. Comparative studies reveal that while bird and mammal brains developed very differently, they often achieve strikingly similar outcomes. The circuits for problem-solving and social complexity in both the mammalian neocortex and avian pallium are remarkably alike, even though their neurons originate in entirely different parts of the developing brain. Moreover, unlike the mammalian cortex, which is layered, the avian pallium is structurally different, being organised into clusters of neurons. In birds, some neuron types emerge from two separate regions but mature into virtually identical cells, erasing their distinct origins. The fact that different paths yield the same neurons and circuits provides a central truth: evolution is not about following a master plan but about finding workable solutions to survival challenges.
DIALECTICAL PROCESS
This blooming of intelligence obeys an abiding dialectical logic: pressures from the environment converge with limitations of the biological, producing intelligence suited to each lifestyle. In the end, intelligence acts as nature's means of survival, tailored to each ecological niche rather than positioned on a notional hierarchy. The diversity of biological intelligence can help dispel the notion of intelligence being a ladder with humans at the top. It can hopefully reveal the absurdity of some humans considering themselves "superior" to other humans within the species Homo sapiens. Intelligence in each organism in a species is the result of millions of years of struggle between life and its environment. Recognising this reality undermines the dangerous myth of 'superior' and 'inferior' intelligence – a belief that has fuelled genocide and, at times, environmental destruction. The truth is that intelligence is valid in its own right, shaped by its context. Understanding this will remove the moral justification for oppression within the human species and bring a deep solidarity between organisms. The diversity of intelligence is not a hierarchy to rank but the outcome of a dialectical process for survival.
