— Overview
Kim Jae-hyeong's Our Eugenics: the history of the fit and the unfit, discrimination and exclusion, traces a line that did not break when the word itself fell out of favor. Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin, gave eugenics a systematic form: the claim that hereditary traits could be improved by encouraging the 'fit' to have children and discouraging the 'unfit.' Social Darwinism after Darwin supplied a wider language of struggle and selection.
In the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, more than thirty states passed compulsory sterilization laws. Nazi racial policy carried the same logic to an extreme. After the Second World War the doctrine was widely criticized, yet, the review argues, the habit of sorting people into fit and unfit did not disappear. It reappears in gene editing, including CRISPR-Cas9, in prenatal genetic analysis, and in algorithms that, in recent reports the review mentions without naming them, have been said to predict higher crime rates for certain races — reports that are not identified here, and are not treated as official tallies.
Meritocracy, in this reading, recasts success as fitness and failure as unfitness, so that exclusion can look like a fair ranking. The author's emphasis is on diversity and inclusion: a society that keeps making room for those it would once have classed as unfit. The book was read in a 2025 social-problems course; that year marks the reading, not a new official measure of eugenics.
— Contents and key concepts
From Galton to the laws of the 1920s and 1930s
Kim Jae-hyeong's Our Eugenics: the history of the fit and the unfit, discrimination and exclusion, traces a line that did not break when the word itself fell out of favor. Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin, gave eugenics a systematic form: the claim that hereditary traits could be improved by encouraging the 'fit' to have children and discouraging the 'unfit.' Social Darwinism after Darwin supplied a wider language of struggle and selection.
In the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, more than thirty states passed compulsory sterilization laws. Nazi racial policy carried the same logic to an extreme. After the Second World War the doctrine was widely criticized, yet the habit of sorting people into fit and unfit, the review argues, did not disappear.
Gene editing, algorithms, and a ranking that looks fair
The same habit reappears in gene editing, including CRISPR-Cas9, in prenatal genetic analysis, and in algorithms that, in recent reports the review mentions without naming them, have been said to predict higher crime rates for certain races. Those reports are not identified here, and are not treated as official tallies. Meritocracy, in this reading, recasts success as fitness and failure as unfitness, so that exclusion can look like a fair ranking.
The author's emphasis is on diversity and inclusion: a society that keeps making room for those it would once have classed as unfit. The book was read in a 2025 social-problems course; that year marks the reading, not a new official measure of eugenics. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.
Sources
- Kim Jae-hyeong, Our Eugenics: the history of the fit and the unfit, discrimination and exclusion. Francis Galton and social Darwinism. U.S. compulsory sterilization laws in more than thirty states in the 1920s and 1930s. Nazi racial policy; postwar critique. Later forms: gene editing including CRISPR-Cas9, prenatal genetic analysis, algorithmic bias as mentioned without named reports, meritocracy. Author's emphasis on diversity and inclusion. The 2025 date is the year of the course reading, not an official eugenics figure. The review does not go on to later statutes.
Last updated: 14 November 2026
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