The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-Man

In this classic 1922 book, Dr. Lothrop Stoddard examines the point where egalitarian revolutionary movements — particularly the French Revolution and its ultimate offspring in the 20th century, the Bolshevik revolution — intersect with human biodiversity. His thesis is that civilisation imposes increasing intellectual and moral burdens on the less able strata of the population, causing growing frustration, restlessness, and feelings of worthlessness among their members, who, meanwhile and due to differential birthrates, grow in number and proportion; eventually, when the pressure becomes unbearable, they rise up in revolt— a revolt against civilisation. Stoddard examines the gradual depletion of cognitive and moral capital from the population due to low fertility among elites and high fertility among the underclasses; the role and methods of 'tainted geniuses' in mobilising discontent, particularly during the French and Bolshevik revolutions; and the ticking dysgenic time-bomb in the United States. Stoddard stresses that averting disaster and improving society demand active policy changes aimed at reversing negative trends and encouraging positive ones, and that these changes will not be made without the development of an eugenic conscience. Rather than the creation of a caste system or an aristocracy, neither of which would guarantee an overall betterment of the population, he proposes fostering the growth of a neo-aristocracy, founded on ability and merit. Stoddard's perspective on these matters is unique in that it is both progressive and elitist. Both his trenchant analysis of socio-political population dynamics and his critique of egalitarian revolutionary movements prove astonishingly prescient in an increasingly troubled and turbulent West.

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