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Speaker 1: Mmm, Hello everyone, I'm Robert Evans and this is once

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Speaker 1: again Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you

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Speaker 1: everything you don't know about the very worst people in

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Speaker 1: all of history. Now, my guest today who was coming

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Speaker 1: in cold to our topic is Josh Clark, post of

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Speaker 1: End of the World, a new podcast on the Stuff Network.

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Speaker 1: Uh and Stuff you Should Know. Uh not new podcast

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Speaker 1: on the Stuff Network, the flagship podcast. You could say,

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Speaker 1: how are you doing, Thank you very much for having

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Speaker 1: me on. I'm doing great. It's great to have you on.

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Speaker 1: So you're a bit of a science buff, would that

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Speaker 1: be fair to say? Sure? Yeah, I like science as

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Speaker 1: much as the next guy. Well, today I have prepared

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Speaker 1: a special topic for you, and it is about the

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Speaker 1: science of racism. Yeah, so we're gonna have us a

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Speaker 1: fun talk. Are you familiar with phrenology? I am. I.

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Speaker 1: I'm a professional phrenologist that turns out actually unsettling. I am.

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Speaker 1: I've always wanted like one of the original like phrenology busts.

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Speaker 1: You can get like knockoffs of them, but you can

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Speaker 1: just tell it to knock off a modern one, But

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Speaker 1: to find an original one that somebody used to actually

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Speaker 1: like diagnose things is I would love to have that. Well,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk a lot about where some of

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Speaker 1: those busts came from. Would you tell me what your

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Speaker 1: knowledge of you know, explain to the audience sort of

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Speaker 1: what you understand as phrenology is or was phrenology From

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Speaker 1: my understanding is you could determine things about an individual

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Speaker 1: based on bumps on their head that are in their skull,

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Speaker 1: the shape of their skull, um just basically feeling the

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Speaker 1: person's skull. You could glean information about their character, um,

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Speaker 1: their heritage, all sorts of stuff. And of course it

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Speaker 1: was just complete in total hog quash. Yeah, and that

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Speaker 1: is a good cliffs notes of phrenology. But the real

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Speaker 1: story of this science, and it was seen as a

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Speaker 1: science for a long time, is much deeper and is

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Speaker 1: inextricably connected to racism, both in the past and today.

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Speaker 1: And so that's what we're gonna be talking about today.

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Speaker 1: So I wanted to get started with a little bit

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Speaker 1: of back ground though on just sort of the evolution

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Speaker 1: of scientific racism, which started out a lot earlier than

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Speaker 1: I think most people would expect. Uh, it's a long,

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Speaker 1: long chain and it really kicks off in the third

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Speaker 1: century b c with a guy you've probably heard of

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Speaker 1: named Aristotle. Often called the father of Western philosophy, Aristotle

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Speaker 1: was also the father of using pseudoscientific rhetoric to justify

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Speaker 1: being addict to people that he thought weren't as good

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Speaker 1: as he is now. By the time he started laying

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Speaker 1: down his theories on natural science, the whole idea of

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Speaker 1: science itself was pretty new, and Aristotle was one of

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Speaker 1: the first people to try and create a biological taxonomy

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Speaker 1: of animals, sorting them into categories and species. This is

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Speaker 1: fine and obviously a major underpinning of biology today, but

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Speaker 1: Aristotle couldn't resist taking his research beyond, you know, the

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Speaker 1: fact that wolves and dogs looked like they might be related,

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Speaker 1: and extending it to creating taxonomies of governments and of

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Speaker 1: human beings. So I'd like to read a quote from

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Speaker 1: a Washington Post article titled Aristotle father of scientific racism.

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Speaker 1: Quote In the first book of his politics, written in

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Speaker 1: the three d SPC, Aristotle uses these taxonomies to justify

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Speaker 1: the exclusion of certain people from civic life, while condemning

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Speaker 1: the predominant method of acquiring slaves in his day capturing

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Speaker 1: prisoners in war. Aristotle argues that some people are, by nature,

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Speaker 1: rather than circumstances, fit to be slaves. For that some

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Speaker 1: should rule and others should be ruled is a thing

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Speaker 1: not only necessary but expedient from the hour of their birth.

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Speaker 1: Some are marked out for subjection, others for rule. Not

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Speaker 1: only were some people slaves by nature, but it was

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Speaker 1: clear that for them quote slavery is both expedient and right.

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Speaker 1: He wrote. So that's Aristotle three, um, and you can

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Speaker 1: see how. You can see why Aristotle was a popular

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Speaker 1: philosopher among some of the Confederate intellectual nobility in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. I think it's obvious where that comes from.

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Speaker 1: So Aristotle's ideal society would have had a strict hierarchy.

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Speaker 1: Each type of human fulfilled a certain role and contributed

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Speaker 1: to a perfect hole as long as nobody got too

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Speaker 1: big for their bridges and decided, for example, that they

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Speaker 1: didn't really want to be a slave. Um. So it's

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Speaker 1: not fair to call arist Attle a racist in the

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Speaker 1: same way we think of a guy like David Duke,

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Speaker 1: Because obviously the idea of whiteness hadn't been invented yet.

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Speaker 1: Aristotle's categories weren't based on anything We recognize as race

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Speaker 1: by the modern sort of definitions of racism. But it

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Speaker 1: had an impact on everything that descended after it, and

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Speaker 1: it was sort of the start of a chain of

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Speaker 1: scientists really trying to find ways to justify the biases

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Speaker 1: in their cultures using sort of scientific method that was,

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Speaker 1: you know, evolving in their day. Carolus Linnaeus, an eighteenth

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Speaker 1: century naturalist known as the father of taxonomy, sorted human

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Speaker 1: beings too, but unlike Aristotle, he sorted them into different

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Speaker 1: races rather than just dividing up society into different classes

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Speaker 1: of people. Linnaeus believed that the four varieties of human

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Speaker 1: being were European, American, Asiatic, and African. Petras Camper, a

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Speaker 1: Dutch anatomy professor in the late eighteenth century, considered Greeks

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Speaker 1: to be the highest form of human being because of

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Speaker 1: their statues were really sexy. So he ranked different varieties

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Speaker 1: of human being by how far their faces varied from

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Speaker 1: Greek statutes, which is kind of a whimsical added you

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Speaker 1: towards racism, that's the one you come up with him

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Speaker 1: and do a little twiral and celebration after these guys

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Speaker 1: statues are so hot, they must be the perfect human beings.

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Speaker 1: Look at those ads. Yeah. Uh. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a

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Speaker 1: German scientist, invented the phrase Caucasian in seventeen. He believed

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Speaker 1: Caucasians were the quote original race of human being and

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Speaker 1: also the most beautiful. In the mid eighteen hundreds, and

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Speaker 1: American anthropologist named Samuel Morton theorized that intelligence and brain

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Speaker 1: sized were linked. So it was into this sort of

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Speaker 1: intellectual atmosphere that Franz Joseph Gall was born in seventeen

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Speaker 1: fifty eight. Have you ever heard of Gall? Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: I don't know what he did. I just heard the name.

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Speaker 1: He did some good, very useful stuff in terms of

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Speaker 1: like studying the brain, and so he was one of

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Speaker 1: the first guys to really lockdown that the brain was

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Speaker 1: sort of the locust of thought and whatnot, because that,

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Speaker 1: you know, was a controversial idea for a while. That's

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Speaker 1: a big one. He unfortunately made a couple of intellectual

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Speaker 1: leaps too far. He came to believe that the brain

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Speaker 1: had multiple agans that were each responsible for different personality traits.

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Speaker 1: On one hand, knowing what we know now about say

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Speaker 1: the hippocampus and memory, or the frontal lobe and thought,

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Speaker 1: you know, it might seem like he wasn't that far

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Speaker 1: off from the truth, considering he was working in eighteen

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Speaker 1: o five. But he leapt from that to claiming that

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Speaker 1: the different shapes of human skulls correspond into the shapes

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Speaker 1: of the brain inside, and so you could determine aspects

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Speaker 1: of a person's character without knowing that person, just by

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Speaker 1: measuring their head. So that isn't that a trend that

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Speaker 1: we're starting to see here. It's basically like, um, you

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Speaker 1: start out scientifically maybe or with a with a good idea,

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Speaker 1: and then it just takes a hard left turn to

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Speaker 1: but I think you look differently from me, and therefore

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Speaker 1: I'm superior to you. Yeah, you start out being like, oh, wow,

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Speaker 1: dogs and people are different things, so we should try

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Speaker 1: to figure out like how to categorize them. And then

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Speaker 1: you're like, well, but this guy who has to clean

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Speaker 1: up everything in the street and doesn't get to do

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Speaker 1: what he wants has to be different from me. Otherwise

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Speaker 1: it's terrible that I'm making him do this. So he's

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Speaker 1: got to be a different kind of thing too. Absolutely, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's how it works. So in eighteen hundred,

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Speaker 1: Frands Joseph Gall invented cranioscopy, a method of determining someone's

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Speaker 1: personality by measuring their head. Cranioscopy would eventually come to

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Speaker 1: be known as phrenology. Uh, this is there, we go,

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Speaker 1: We're into it now. Gall and his early followers in

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Speaker 1: Europe weren't motivated primarily by racism. It didn't appear to

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Speaker 1: be much of a factor at all. In the early

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Speaker 1: days of their research. The early phrenologists and Gall focused

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Speaker 1: mostly on criminals. During a lecture tour across western Europe,

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Speaker 1: he visited prisons and quote gave the most convincing proofs

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Speaker 1: of his ability to discover at first sight such malefactors, thieves,

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Speaker 1: and men of particular talents as were amongst the convicts

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Speaker 1: and prisoners. So he's going into jails and being like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you can tell by this guy's head that he was

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Speaker 1: destined to do the stuff that he's you know, and

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Speaker 1: look at the size of those knuckles too. I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: trust the knuckles alone, let alone his head shots. Now,

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Speaker 1: you see, knuckles seems like a more reasonable thing to measure,

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Speaker 1: because if someone's got real callous knuckles, they're probably doing

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Speaker 1: too much punching, right, you know, it's interesting that he

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Speaker 1: went and looked at criminals. I mean, I guess if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to separate the good from the bad, um,

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Speaker 1: that's a good place to start his prison. But from

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Speaker 1: what I understand, that eventually kind of translated over to

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Speaker 1: a lot of the fields of forensic science, like the

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Speaker 1: basis of forensic science. I think phrenology was one of

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Speaker 1: the forensic sciences A regional Yeah, I mean, he isn't

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Speaker 1: really one of the very first people looking at crime

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Speaker 1: and criminals and the causes of crime in a scientific way. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: he's sort of working backwards from Okay, this guy is

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Speaker 1: a murderer, and he's got a head shaped like this,

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Speaker 1: which means anybody with a head that has a bump

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Speaker 1: here has a murder lobe in their brain. You know that.

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Speaker 1: That's what we call over generalizing in the scientific community. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, we didn't start out being good at science.

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Speaker 1: It's it's been a bit of a learning process for

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Speaker 1: the whole species. It's fair to say that. So racism

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Speaker 1: crept slowly into Gaul's work as his ideas evolved. He

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Speaker 1: began to classify certain groups of Asian people as inclined

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Speaker 1: to quote theft and ruse by the shapes of their skulls.

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Speaker 1: Several groups of Indians, like subcontinental Indians, were described as

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Speaker 1: inherently quote cruel, superstitious, and stupid. Gall's protege, Johan Spurzheim,

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Speaker 1: came to believe in the destructiveness of Caribbean islanders. Now,

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Speaker 1: the Catholic Church was an early opponent of Gall's ideas,

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Speaker 1: not because they were concerned about the racism, but because

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Speaker 1: they thought that the idea of the human mind having

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Speaker 1: a physical location was horribly offensive and probably inspired by

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Speaker 1: the devil. So the Catholic churches on the right side

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Speaker 1: of this, but for the wrong reasons. It sounds right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it sounds like the Catholic Church. Yeah, while there

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Speaker 1: are reasons for doing so differed. Mainstream scientists at the

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Speaker 1: time also offered a great deal of resistance to Gall's ideas,

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Speaker 1: mainly because he was unable to present any sort of,

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Speaker 1: you know, empirical proof for anything that he said. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: a lot of scientists are pointing out the problems in

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Speaker 1: his research as he starts off, So I'm sure he

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Speaker 1: retorted with, well, look at the shape of your head.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't know anything. You're clearly too dumb to understand

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Speaker 1: my ideas. You've got the head of an idiot, I

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Speaker 1: can tell look at that bump. So yeah. Gulls science

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Speaker 1: picked up the name phrenology and almost immediately became known

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Speaker 1: as a haven for con artists and Charlottean's who would

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Speaker 1: travel from town to town in Europe, offering, for example,

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Speaker 1: to advise parents on what type of thing their children

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Speaker 1: should go to school to specialize in based on the

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Speaker 1: shape of their skull. They would also testify and whether

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Speaker 1: or not a condemned man should be shown leniency, so

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Speaker 1: you could essentially say like, oh, you know, this might

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Speaker 1: have been a crime of passion because he doesn't have

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Speaker 1: the skull of a murderer, or, as was probably more

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Speaker 1: often the case, this guy should stay in prison forever

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Speaker 1: because the shape of his skull means he can't be rehabilitated.

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Speaker 1: We can tell that he's just got the brain of

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Speaker 1: a criminal. It's the size of a watermelon and the shape. Now.

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Speaker 1: Gall was eventually run out of Austria as a result of,

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Speaker 1: you know, the fact that phrenology acquired a reputation as

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Speaker 1: a conman science. He moved to France and eighteen o five,

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Speaker 1: and in eighteen o eight, the Institute of France subjected

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Speaker 1: phrenology to a scientific committee, which concluded that it was

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Speaker 1: basically hogwash. Now, one source I've read said that was

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Speaker 1: secretly because the Emperor Napoleon hated phrenology, And this source

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Speaker 1: says that Napoleon hated phrenology because he let Gall phrenologize

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Speaker 1: his head, and Gall apparently concluded that Napoleon was not

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Speaker 1: as great as Napoleon thought he was. That's not the

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Speaker 1: smartest phrenology move you could have gotten. You really should

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Speaker 1: probably flatter Napoleon, right, you can come across that one

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Speaker 1: bump you keep to yourself when you're when you're feeling

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Speaker 1: Napoleon's head, Yeah, eighteen o five, He's a really good

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Speaker 1: guy to be on the good side of. Now, it

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Speaker 1: is possible that that's not fair to Napoleon. I found

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Speaker 1: a book written by the wife of the governor of

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Speaker 1: Paris at the time, and she spent a significant amount

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Speaker 1: of time in Napoleon's company and also met Gall. Her

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Speaker 1: explanation of why Napoleon soured on phrenology seems a lot

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Speaker 1: more reasonable, and she also has a story of Gall

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Speaker 1: trying to diagnose her son, So I'm going to read

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Speaker 1: some of her writing. Quote as to Dr Gall, he

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Speaker 1: Napoleon despised him and had no faith in his system.

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Speaker 1: He was just then beginning in France to acquire a

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Speaker 1: great reputation, which he has left behind him. I had

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Speaker 1: reached Dr Gall in his arrival in France, for as

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Speaker 1: the wife of the Governor of Paris, I thought it

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Speaker 1: my duty to show attention to a man who was

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Speaker 1: reputed to have made great and useful discoveries in science.

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Speaker 1: One day, when he was dining at my house, I

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Speaker 1: requested him to examine the head of my little son,

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Speaker 1: who was then six weeks old. The child was brought in,

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Speaker 1: his cap was taken off, and the doctor, after an

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Speaker 1: attentive examination of his little head, said, in a solemn voice,

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Speaker 1: this child will be a great mathematician. This prediction has

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Speaker 1: certainly not been verified. My eldest son, on the contrary,

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Speaker 1: possesses a brilliant and poetic imagination. It is possible that

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Speaker 1: he might have been a mathematician had he been forced

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Speaker 1: into that study. But certainly the natural bent of his

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Speaker 1: mind would never have led him to calculations in the

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Speaker 1: solution of problems. So according to this lady, Napoleon basically

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Speaker 1: hated phrenology because he thought it was going to lead

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Speaker 1: to something terrible, and in fact, if her depiction is accurate,

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Speaker 1: Napoleon actually kind of predicted what's going to come next.

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Speaker 1: In the story, she quotes Napoleon as saying, quote, a

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Speaker 1: man like Dr Gall is good for something. At least,

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Speaker 1: I think I shall establish for him a professor's chair,

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Speaker 1: so that he may teach his system in all of

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Speaker 1: the basically colleges of Paris. Uh. It may then be

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Speaker 1: ascertained as soon as a child comes into the world

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Speaker 1: what he is destined to be, and if he should

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Speaker 1: have the organs of murder or theft very strongly marked,

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Speaker 1: he may be immediately drowned, as the Greeks used to

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Speaker 1: drown the crooked legged and the hunchbacked. So essentially, Napoleon

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Speaker 1: said that Gall's ideas were destructive of order in law,

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Speaker 1: that they would lead to children being judged before they'd

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Speaker 1: done anything and punished for the shape of their skulls.

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Speaker 1: Basically like like a nineteenth century minority report. Yeah, exactly, exactly,

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Speaker 1: so woke. Napoleon did not get on board phrenology. That's

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Speaker 1: that's impressive. I had no idea. Yeah, you know, he's

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Speaker 1: not a dumb man and clearly saw some problems in

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Speaker 1: this science, which will become clearer as we continue to

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Speaker 1: talk about its history. So the first country where gall

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Speaker 1: saw success with phrenology then was not Austria, where he

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Speaker 1: was educated, or France where he came to live. It

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Speaker 1: was England. The early eighteen hundreds were a time of

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Speaker 1: wild expansion in the British Empire. The British East India

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Speaker 1: Company conquered huge swaths of India and Southeast Asia, and

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Speaker 1: spread from the east to the west coast of Canada.

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Speaker 1: The Empire grew by leaps and bounds, and as it

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Speaker 1: did and needed a good way to justify its dominance

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Speaker 1: over increasingly vast chunks of humanity. Phrenology was seen as

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Speaker 1: establishing scientifically the inferiority of British colonial subjects, particularly at

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Speaker 1: first the Irish, because obviously the shapes of Irish people

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Speaker 1: skulls mean that they need to be run by the British.

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Speaker 1: Other great minds of Europe jumped on phrenology and the

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Speaker 1: chance to justify colonialism. Doctor Jean Bordon concluded that it

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Speaker 1: was Europe's destiny to educate and conquer the quote less

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Speaker 1: intelligent races, many of which he considered intermediates between humans

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Speaker 1: and apes. Hubert Laverne, a prominent nineteenth century physician, built

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Speaker 1: on the methods pioneered by Dr Gall to establish the

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Speaker 1: quote immutability of the Jewish type. As the eighteen twenties

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Speaker 1: roared on, the Phrenological Journal warned that British soldiers ought

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Speaker 1: not marriy members of more primitive races in their domains,

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Speaker 1: lest they, you know, essentially weaken the intellect of the

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Speaker 1: British people. By the late eighteen twenties, the science of

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Speaker 1: phrenology found a second welcoming home in the United States.

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Speaker 1: In the early eighteen thirties, abolition had caught on like

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Speaker 1: wildfire in Europe and was starting to catch on in

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Speaker 1: parts of the United States. Great Britain Band slavery in

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty three, so American slave owners were eager for

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Speaker 1: a science that could justify their continued subjugation and you know,

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Speaker 1: enslavement of African people's. They also were looking for a

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Speaker 1: science that could sort of justify their extermination of the

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Speaker 1: Native Americans, and obviously, phrenology offered them a really good

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Speaker 1: excuse to do that, because you know, if you're saying

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Speaker 1: on one end that all human beings are human beings,

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Speaker 1: then it's horrible to do all the things that we

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Speaker 1: were doing. But if if some people, by their skulls

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Speaker 1: just can't reason or whatever, then yeah, it's reasonable that

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Speaker 1: you would you would have to hold them in bondage.

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Speaker 1: So I think it's the I think, if I mean

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Speaker 1: cutting for a second, think exact same thing that was

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Speaker 1: being done prior to science. Um, I'm making scare quotes

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Speaker 1: um coming into justify subjugation and colonization. Before that, it

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Speaker 1: was that um, Native Americans that were being encountered by

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Speaker 1: explorers in the fifteenth century and sixteenth century, they didn't

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Speaker 1: have souls, they weren't humans. So this is just a

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Speaker 1: variation on that theme with kind of like a scientific

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Speaker 1: gleam to it. You know, like the Irish have a

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Speaker 1: certain kind of head, so the British can subjugate them,

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Speaker 1: or the Spanish can subjugate the Seminoles. It's the exact

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Speaker 1: same thing. It's just science based rather than you know,

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Speaker 1: religious based. Yeah, and that that's sort of what was

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Speaker 1: necessary in this era because this is really a time

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Speaker 1: when religion is less and less sort of the You

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Speaker 1: can't justify your political actions of your nations just by religion,

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Speaker 1: you know. It's it's too late in the game to

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Speaker 1: justify a crusade essentially that way. And so if you

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Speaker 1: look at like the spread of the British Empire, when

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Speaker 1: the East India companies first started taking land in India,

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Speaker 1: they weren't conquering land. They were basically saying that, like,

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Speaker 1: well know, these princes have asked for our help, so

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Speaker 1: in exchange for lending them use of our military, we're

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Speaker 1: getting certain rights. And as the British Empire did more

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Speaker 1: and more just straight up conquering, you know, they needed

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Speaker 1: some sort of reason to justify it. And so, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is in a way, it's very true that um

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Speaker 1: people have always found a way to sort of push

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Speaker 1: aside the humanity of the people they screw over. But

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Speaker 1: this was a way to do that while still pretending

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Speaker 1: that we're getting more enlightened and we're we're on board

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Speaker 1: with science. Um Plus, it was new and shiny. It

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Speaker 1: dazzled a lot of people's mind. It's very shiny, and

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Speaker 1: instead of like, you know, it didn't seem hateful when

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Speaker 1: some doctor takes out a skull and explains to you

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Speaker 1: why an Irishman is different from an Englishman, or why

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Speaker 1: a Cherokee is different from a Caucasian American. You know

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Speaker 1: that doesn't seem hateful, which I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: people were starting to feel guilty about hate, and being

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Speaker 1: able to sort of justify it with science was attractive.

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Speaker 1: So Francis gall died in leaving his protege Spurzheim as

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Speaker 1: the head of the phrenology movement. Spurs Time traveled to

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Speaker 1: the United States in eighteen thirty two to lecture American

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Speaker 1: thinkers on this exciting new science that would give them

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Speaker 1: a reason to keep their slaves beyond the fact that

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Speaker 1: they just didn't like working. Americans took to phrenology like

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Speaker 1: a bat takes to sleeping upside down. Spurs Time's lectures

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Speaker 1: were wildly popular among the intellectual set. Phrenology was not

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Speaker 1: accepted wholesale, though, as this poem written in a local

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Speaker 1: newspaper makes clear, quote, great man of skulls, I must

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Speaker 1: let loose my pin against you. More's the pity, for

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Speaker 1: surely you have played the deuce among the noodles of

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Speaker 1: the city. I won't malignantly assail your fame and say

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Speaker 1: you mean to joke us. But faith, I can't make

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Speaker 1: header tail of all this mystic hocus pocus. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: missed the days when people through shade and poems in

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Speaker 1: the neaper, in the newspaper. Whatever happened to that. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it may have just been this for this particular person

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Speaker 1: at one time. That Yeah, I don't know. I feel

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Speaker 1: like there was an age where you could where people

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Speaker 1: really appreciated a good poem or limerick, and that was

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Speaker 1: It does seem like the middle of the twenties century

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Speaker 1: was the last time funny joking rhymes were popular, like

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Speaker 1: Alan Sherman songs and stuff like that. You know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just I guess now we have rapped. Maybe that's it,

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Speaker 1: Like hip hop took the place right, but it's not jokey.

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Speaker 1: Yeah really, you know, Yeah, it's a jokey aspect or

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Speaker 1: the whimsical aspect of it that that is really newspaper centric. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: any poets out there listening, start contributing political poems to newspapers.

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Speaker 1: Bring it back to the public life. Now we're going

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Speaker 1: to get back when talk about sort of how phrenology

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Speaker 1: continued to spread across the United States and how it

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Speaker 1: was used to justify both sides of America's abolition debate.

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Speaker 1: And then we're going to get into a number of

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Speaker 1: other horrifying things, including the growing bone industry that was

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00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:52,280
Speaker 1: created by sort of phrenologies peculiarities. But first, speaking of industries,

391
00:19:53,080 --> 00:20:01,159
Speaker 1: it's time for some ads and we're back. So we

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Speaker 1: just read a cheeky little poem about Phrenologe and we

393
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:06,240
Speaker 1: talked about sort of how spurs him. The protege of

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Speaker 1: phrenologies and venture Gaul, you know, had traveled to the

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Speaker 1: United States to start lecturing. He did that in eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty two. But he he didn't last long. He died

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Speaker 1: in Boston a few months after he arrived in America.

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Speaker 1: And his death was yeah, well, I mean it was

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two. People died for no reason back then,

400
00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:24,200
Speaker 1: or or the Irish found out what he'd been saying

401
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:27,360
Speaker 1: about them. He didn't make it out of Boston a lot. Yeah,

402
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:30,119
Speaker 1: Boston's a bad place to talk about how Irish people

403
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Speaker 1: have bad skulls. And the same man who told Napoleon

404
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:37,280
Speaker 1: he was like, man, well this is his protegee. But yeah,

405
00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 1: I'm sure Napoleon didn't like this guy either, um So

406
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:43,919
Speaker 1: spurs Time's death in Boston was sort of seen as

407
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Speaker 1: spurring the phrenology movement to popularity in the United States.

408
00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:50,679
Speaker 1: The entirety of Harvard Medical Schools teaching staff showed up

409
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Speaker 1: at his funeral. He was called a prophet. In general,

410
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,560
Speaker 1: there was an attitude that phrenology was a scientific leap,

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Speaker 1: akin to Darwin's theory of natural selection. Now people really

412
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:02,600
Speaker 1: up this seriously, and scientists took this seriously. At this point,

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Speaker 1: these ideas haven't really spread to the common man much, right.

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Speaker 1: This is just something that like, especially in America, educated

415
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:12,240
Speaker 1: people are really into. Now. With gall and Spursheim dead,

416
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:15,760
Speaker 1: the phrenology movement temporarily lacked a figurehead, and so instepped

417
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:19,360
Speaker 1: doctor Charles Calledwell, a slave owner from Kentucky who fell

418
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:22,200
Speaker 1: in love with phrenology while visiting Paris in the eighteen twenties.

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Speaker 1: Despite being a doctor, Caldwell didn't actually have a medical

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Speaker 1: practice for the last fifty years of his life. Unlike

421
00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:31,399
Speaker 1: doctor's galland Spursheim, he did no actual research. Primarily, he

422
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:34,359
Speaker 1: lectured about phrenology, and when he lectured about phrenology, he

423
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:37,280
Speaker 1: was mainly lecturing about why black people should be owned

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Speaker 1: by white people. Thanks to called Well, American phrenology took

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00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:42,880
Speaker 1: off like a bullet in the eighteen thirties and forties.

426
00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:45,440
Speaker 1: Uh Here's how. An article I found in the Historical

427
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 1: Journal by James Poskett described Dr. Caldwell's life as a

428
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 1: phrenological advocate. Every spring, Charles Caldwell set off from his

429
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,960
Speaker 1: hometown in Kentucky, traveling down the Mississippi River by paddle

430
00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:59,000
Speaker 1: steamer before finally arriving in New Orleans. Once there, he

431
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,200
Speaker 1: would unpack his election of phrenological busts, ready to begin

432
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:05,359
Speaker 1: his annual lecture tour at the New Orleans Lyceum. The

433
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 1: Governor of Louisiana listed attentively, whilst the local organizing committee

434
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:12,840
Speaker 1: praised Calledwell for his highly intellectual and interesting exposition of

435
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:16,160
Speaker 1: the philosophy of the human mind. Following Caldwell's initial tours

436
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 1: in the eighteen twenties, white Southerners took an increasing interest

437
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:22,480
Speaker 1: in phrenology. Called Well even complained of competition from a

438
00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:26,840
Speaker 1: tenerant lecturers in Louisiana. Local enthusiast in Alabama also printed

439
00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 1: an account of a Negro boy exhibiting exceptional mathematic ability.

440
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:33,919
Speaker 1: Despite describing the young slave as a living wonder, the

441
00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: authors proceeded to offer the boy's skull as a valuable

442
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 1: acquisition to any phrenological collection. One phrenologist even admitted to

443
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:43,320
Speaker 1: acquiring the skull of a slave who had been struck

444
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: on the head with an axe by his master. In

445
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 1: the South, phrenology and violence when hand in hand. So

446
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: even at this point in the eighteen twenties, people who

447
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:56,280
Speaker 1: get interested in phrenology are picking out living slaves like

448
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:59,879
Speaker 1: this little black boy who's apparently good at math, and saying, oh,

449
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 1: we should take his skull when he dies while he's

450
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: still alive, sort of marking out that, like, oh, that

451
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:07,119
Speaker 1: would be an interesting skull to measure. It's further com

452
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: modifying people's bodies because of sort of the value of

453
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 1: these skulls as scientific aids or whatever. I'm starting to

454
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: see where you're going, and I'm getting a little uncomfortable. Yeah,

455
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 1: none of these podcasts ever go in a good direction. Uh,

456
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:23,199
Speaker 1: and this one is going to be no exception to that.

457
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:25,680
Speaker 1: It's it just gets more and more terrible. I mean,

458
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:27,399
Speaker 1: as a little bit of a spoiler, we wind up

459
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:33,400
Speaker 1: at the Rwandan genocide. So yeah. In eighteen thirty eight,

460
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:35,680
Speaker 1: on a trip back to Paris, doctor Caldwell met a

461
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 1: French phrenologist named Pierre du Mortier. Now do Martier had

462
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: just spent three years traveling around the world and collecting skulls.

463
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 1: He and called Well spent long days hanging out at

464
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:46,399
Speaker 1: the muse A dephrenology in Paris, feeling for bumps on

465
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,120
Speaker 1: the skulls of dead Tahitians and Africans and assorted other

466
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: non white people's. They made wild pronouncements about what these

467
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: bumps meant about the characteristics of these races. Most excitingly,

468
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: from a standpoint of outrageous racism. Calldwell found that areas

469
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: in the top and back of the skull of Africans

470
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: which corresponded he said, to veneration and cautiousness were enlarged

471
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: in Africans. During an exchange of letters, one of his

472
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 1: colleagues noted, quote, they are slaves because they are tamable.

473
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,040
Speaker 1: Called Well replied, depend upon it, my good friend. The

474
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:20,919
Speaker 1: Africans must have a master. Now, doctor Calledwell, is evidence

475
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 1: of a type of asshole that I don't think we

476
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: talk about quite enough. When we talk about slavery in

477
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,439
Speaker 1: the United States, usually slaveholders are just portrayed as like

478
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 1: wildly cruel, whip happy bigots, almost comedically monstrous individuals. And

479
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 1: while what was going on was monstrous in every case,

480
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 1: I think it's important that we remember that a lot

481
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:41,439
Speaker 1: of these slave owners were mild mannered people who found

482
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: ways to justify owning human beings. It was clearly important

483
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 1: to doctor Calledwell that he'd be seen as kind, generous,

484
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 1: and almost parental to the people he owned. In letters

485
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 1: to his abolitionist friends, he wrote things like, my slaves

486
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 1: live much more comfortably than I do. So called Well

487
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: was someone who was not comfortable with owning another human being.

488
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 1: He needed this sort of science as a justification for

489
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:08,120
Speaker 1: his slavery. He needed to feel like what I'm doing

490
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 1: isn't wrong, what I'm doing is necessary. Yeah, that's that's

491
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: an important nuance, because nobody wants to feel like a

492
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: bad guy. You know, none of these people are mustache

493
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,200
Speaker 1: twirling villains. They want to feel like a good person.

494
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 1: I think that's important to understand if you understand how

495
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 1: this lasted so long in the United States. I think

496
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 1: another way to put it to is that their conscience

497
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: has started nagging at them. Yeah, I think you're right.

498
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,640
Speaker 1: I think a guy like called Well, clearly educated enough,

499
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 1: something about this must have bothered him, which is why

500
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: I think he would have sought out phrenology and found

501
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 1: it almost like a breath of fresh air as he

502
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: starts to realize how messed up the system of slavery is.

503
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 1: And I should note that a lot of doctor Calledwell's

504
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: abolitionist friends were phrenologists. To the two things were not

505
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:56,640
Speaker 1: mutually exclusive, and actually many abolitionists in America were phrenologists

506
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: as well, and in fact justified their abolitionism via frenolog

507
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: g One such man was George Comb. He was a

508
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: friend of doctor Caldwell, a phrenologist, but he was an abolitionist.

509
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: During the nineteenth century, combs books on natural science actually

510
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: outsold Charles Darwin's. The reason you haven't heard about Comb

511
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: is that he wrote heavily about phrenology, which we now

512
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: know his nonsense. Uh. He and called Well we're friends,

513
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: or at least friendly, and they wound up on opposite

514
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: sides of the slavery issue. So comman Calledwell wrote many

515
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 1: letters to each other, actually debating, you know whether or

516
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: not it was okay to keep slaves. So we have

517
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: evidence of how their ideas on the matter evolved over time.

518
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,199
Speaker 1: We know that Calledwell attempted to convince his friend that

519
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 1: Africans were born to be slaves. I'm going to quote

520
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 1: from paper titled Phrenology, Correspondence and the Global Politics of Reform.

521
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 1: Quote invoking the idea of an omnipotent creator common to

522
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: Southern arguments against abolition, Calledwell suggested to Comb that by

523
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: original organization and therefore radically and irredeemably, the African is

524
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: an inferior race. Nothing short of the power that made

525
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: them can never raise them to an equality with the Caucasian.

526
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,200
Speaker 1: For Caldwell, it was the large animal organs low kid

527
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 1: at the back of the head which rendered Africans unfit

528
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: for freedom. In a long letter to Comb on this subject,

529
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: Caldwell drew repeated parallels between animals and slaves, writing that

530
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: by good pasture and feeding, you may increase the size

531
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: of your horses and cows, but you cannot bestow upon

532
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: them the bulk of the rhinoceros or the elephant. In

533
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: another letter, Caldwell's wrote that he found the difference between

534
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: Africans and Caucasians to be much greater than the difference

535
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: in organization between the dog and the wolf, or between

536
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: the fox and the jackal. Yet they are acknowledged to

537
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 1: differ in species. Abolitionists could not hope to change either

538
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 1: the Ethiopian skin or the leopard spots. In conclusion, called

539
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: Will argued, the Africans must have a master. Now what's

540
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: interesting about this to me is that Comb didn't disagree

541
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: with Caldwell in any of his scientific conclusions about the

542
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: skulls of people who weren't white. Comb was just as

543
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:49,919
Speaker 1: racist as his friend. But where Caldwell saw Africans as

544
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: unfit for freedom, Comb saw them as so inherently docile

545
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:55,200
Speaker 1: and simple minded that it was cruel to keep them

546
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: as slaves, writing quote, the qualities which make them submit

547
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: to slavery are a guarantee that, if emancipated and justly

548
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: dealt with, they would not shed blood. So there's this

549
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: debate we have in the United States about our founding fathers,

550
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,200
Speaker 1: most of whom were not abolitionists, and many of whom

551
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:12,920
Speaker 1: were slave owners, most of whom were slave owners. On

552
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 1: one hand, there are people who say that any slave

553
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: owner was a bad person and this is my attitude.

554
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 1: Other people will argue that while everyone was very racist

555
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 1: back then, and you can't judge people three years ago

556
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: by the terms of modern morality, and I think called

557
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,439
Speaker 1: Well and Comb's argument proves that you can grow up

558
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: in a racist age and believe racist things because those

559
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: are the popular beliefs of the era, and still wind

560
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: up on the right side historically of an issue like slavery.

561
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: Comb was a racist, but he's still opposed slavery. Called

562
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: Well was a racist too, but he supported slavery because

563
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: I think he was just a worse person than Comb.

564
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know. That's that's an interesting moral

565
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: point to me, the way that you can kind of

566
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: see the inherent moral character in both people. So despite

567
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: both growing up in a racist era and both growing

568
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: up sort of enthrall to these ideas, Comb still had

569
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 1: enough of a decent person inside him. He was like, no,

570
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:08,239
Speaker 1: slavery is just not okay, right, right, I think, you know,

571
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: like it's it's kind of a prickly um topic of

572
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: conversation whether you can hold people in an era accountable

573
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: when everybody in an era was, you know, thought a

574
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: certain way, and you were raised to think a certain way,

575
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: but I think it is particularly with slavery. It's, um,

576
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: it's such a horrific concept in such a horrific thing

577
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: in reality as well that the very fact that there

578
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: was such a thing as abolitionists, there were such a

579
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: thing as people who were opposed to slavery in the

580
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: context of a slave holding era of United States, I

581
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: think you can't hold the people who were ardent slaveholders

582
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 1: accountable or anybody who held slaves accountable for holding slaves. Yeah,

583
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: and especially when you start talking about like the guys

584
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 1: who founded the country, you know, most of them were

585
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: slave owners, but not all of them. Was the guy

586
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: who wrote common sense, Thomas Payne. Thomas Payne was a

587
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: lifelong abolitionist, was never okay with slavery. And so it's

588
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: not a matter of the fact that like, well, no,

589
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: they all believed this thing, because you know, I'm sure

590
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: Thomas Payne would not qualify as woke on racial issues

591
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: by twenty first century standards, but he had He was

592
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: clearly a good person because he wasn't willing to accept

593
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: this system. Um. And you have a guy like Benjamin

594
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: Franklin who did own slaves for a period of time

595
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: and then, as an older man, had a friend who

596
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 1: ran essentially a home for orphaned children, and he met

597
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,479
Speaker 1: a couple of young black children at that home and

598
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: realized that he had been wrong his entire life and

599
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:43,719
Speaker 1: became an abolitionist near the end of his life. Um

600
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: so again, Yeah, even within these guys, like you can

601
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 1: see who was a decent person and not. And it's

602
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: the people who came around on the issue who recognized that,

603
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 1: you know, whatever else they might may have believed, it's

604
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 1: not okay to own people. What do you think that

605
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: isn't in somebody that even amid everybody else thinking that

606
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: something is fine or acceptable or right or whatever you

607
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: want to call it, that you can still see that

608
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: something's wrong when it's actually wrong. Like what is that?

609
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: Is that how you're raised? Are you born with that

610
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: level of character? What do you think of it? I

611
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: don't know. That's a really fascinating and an important question.

612
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: You know. The morality is to an extent dependent upon

613
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: the time. Like you look at um World War two, uh,

614
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: and it's clear that one side was better than the other,

615
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: even though both sides were willing to consider civilians an

616
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: acceptable target in warfare, which is not a thing that

617
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: we think is okay today. But you know, it's a

618
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: matter of like what one side was fighting for versus

619
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: what the other side was fighting for, and the Allies

620
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: were fighting for something a lot better. I don't know.

621
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: It's tougher when we go further back in time, and

622
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: you know, you talk about like the Roman Empire, where

623
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: it was just accepted that like, oh no, when you

624
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: sack a city, you burned that city to the ground.

625
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:54,239
Speaker 1: The women are going to get raped, the young men

626
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: are going to get killed. That's just how we do war.

627
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: And then you run into a guy like Spartacus. He's

628
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: a really fat stating case because he's one of these

629
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: clear examples you've get of someone with a really strong

630
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: and really modern moral compass a couple of thousand years ago,

631
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: because he's leading the slave revolt against the Roman Empire,

632
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: and he and all of the people who are in

633
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: the revolt have been horrifically brutally treated by the Romans,

634
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: and yet as they're beating these Roman legions and rampaging

635
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: through Italy, he refuses to attack Roman towns. He refuses

636
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: to let his army sack towns or punish the people

637
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: who had been holding them as slaves. He's just trying

638
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:31,479
Speaker 1: to escape, which is yes, some people, some people have

639
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: that enough of I don't know what it is. Yeah, yeah,

640
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 1: I guess if we could answer that, we would be

641
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: pretty far along. We would be philosophers like Aristotle, and

642
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: thus we would also be racists faces on the status.

643
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 1: I do think there's something about like when you talk

644
00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: about a guy like Benjamin Franklin who was willing to

645
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: admit that he'd been wrong and taking part in a

646
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: bad system his whole life and try to change it

647
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: once he realized he'd been wrong. I think one aspect

648
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: of being a good person is being willing to admit that.

649
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: Number one, there's no privileged position in history. Just because

650
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: something is normal and accepted by your culture doesn't mean

651
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: it's okay. And also that just because you've done something

652
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: your whole life doesn't mean you have to defend it reflexively.

653
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: You can recognize your mistakes and try to be better.

654
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think that's an important aspect. Yeah,

655
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: So phrenology, we're talking about Caldwell and Combe, who were

656
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: both wound up on different sides of the abolition argument,

657
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: in spite of the fact that they were both phrenologists.

658
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: Phrenology you wound up to also have an impact on

659
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: US policy towards Native Americans in the eighteen thirties and forties,

660
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: a time when the US was expanding rapidly and taking

661
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 1: away a lot of land it had previously promised to

662
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: Native tribes. People didn't want to feel like they were

663
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: bad for supporting the government stealing land from Native people,

664
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: so they needed a justification for why the US government

665
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: was continually screwing over Native Americans. Enter Samuel Morton. Now.

666
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: Morton was the author of an eighteen thirty nine book

667
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: called Crania Americana, which included detailed drawings of skulls and

668
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: assessments of the mental capacities of the various peoples of

669
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 1: North America. Now, the article includes an excerpt from Crania America,

670
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: and it's pretty racist. It looks like what you'd expect

671
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: from a pre Civil War text book, but somehow it's

672
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: even worse than I would have guessed. I don't know

673
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be able to see this over the webcam. Yeah,

674
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: just to describe this for the readers, this is a

675
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: page that has the top appears to be a picture

676
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: of a Greek or Roman statue clearly representing a Caucasian.

677
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 1: The middle picture is a very offensive caricature of a

678
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:38,239
Speaker 1: black man, and then the bottom is a monkey, And

679
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:40,760
Speaker 1: the clear inference is that the skulls of the black

680
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 1: man and the monkey are more similar than they are

681
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: to the skulls of the white man. Well. Plus also

682
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 1: just even how it's laid out on the page with

683
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: the Caucasian statue at the top exactly, there's a lot

684
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: of a lot in that visual right there. Yeah, and

685
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 1: then there's even more racist drawings of black people to

686
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: the right of it. It's very racist. Uh, it is

687
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: like the picture of scientific racism. So Morton and Crania

688
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: Americana divided North America's human beings into four separate species,

689
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: including whites, Native Americans, and Africans. He rejected the idea

690
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: that people's environment and culture might have any impact on

691
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 1: the way they looked or think, and instead decried that

692
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 1: when it came to Native Americans quote, the structure of

693
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 1: his mind appears to be different from that of the

694
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: white man. I found a lovely article on this on

695
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 1: Vassar University's Real Archaeology blog. Quote. His study of schools

696
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: concluded that Native American minds were different from that of

697
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: the white man, and was cited in articles targeted at

698
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: Western settlers and encountering Native Americans. One article stated that

699
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: Native Americans were adverse to cultivation, slow and acquiring knowledge.

700
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: This view of Native American existence in society is not

701
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: conducive to industrialization and progress helped justify Andrew Jackson's Indian

702
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: removal policies and allowed Western settlers to continue taking land

703
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:57,479
Speaker 1: of Native Americans. Now, this is the point at which

704
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 1: phrenology starts to spread outside of educated slave owners arguing

705
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: with their northern friends and trying to like, you know,

706
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: and spreads to the common man. So the average guy

707
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 1: on the street starts to get especially the average white

708
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,839
Speaker 1: guy on the street, starts to get an understanding of

709
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,360
Speaker 1: phrenology at this point. We did a two part episode

710
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: on the Trail of Tears starring Andrew Jackson, and he

711
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: was a huge prism for that kind of thinking into

712
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: into popular culture in America because he was a huge

713
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: populist president. But one of the platforms that he used

714
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 1: to justify the removal of Native Americans was that they

715
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: were getting in the way of forward progress. Of the

716
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: United States. There was all about pushing westward and starting

717
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: to build railroads and using the timber for industry and money,

718
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: and the Native Americans were doing nothing with this land,

719
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 1: so we need to just move them and and move

720
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 1: through them exactly. And you can see how phrenology would

721
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 1: be useful in terms of making that argument in a

722
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,320
Speaker 1: way that doesn't make you feel like a terrible person

723
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: for making it, because it's one thing to have to say,

724
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: you know, oh, they don't want the same kind of

725
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: progress we want, because then you have to argue about, well,

726
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:09,840
Speaker 1: you know what aspects of there maybe is is maybe

727
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 1: the way they're doing it, you know, better than the

728
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 1: way we're doing it. Why is our way right? And

729
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: instead you're saying no, no, no, no. Because of these physical,

730
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 1: scientific reasons, they're not capable of civilizing themselves, and so

731
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 1: it's our duty to push them. And this is what

732
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: the science says. So yeah, this is very much sort

733
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 1: of And again it's not to say Andrew Jackson would

734
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 1: have been nice to the Cherokee or any other Native

735
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: tribes if phrenology hadn't come around, but it gave it

736
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: provided an ideological justification for what was happening, which I

737
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 1: do think is important. Now I read one article from

738
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: a Cambridge PhD student that defined Crania Americana Morton's book

739
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:50,839
Speaker 1: as undoubtedly the most important work in the history of

740
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: scientific racism. With its detailed illustrations and scientific appearance, Crania

741
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 1: Americana was exactly the kind of work necessary to make

742
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: phrenology and the entire idea of race bay science go

743
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:04,240
Speaker 1: viral across the world for the very first time. Quote

744
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 1: Within a few years, Crania Americana had been read in Britain, France, Germany,

745
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 1: Russia and India. James Cowls Pritchard, the founding father of

746
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: British anthropology, described it as exemplary, whilst Charles Darwin considered

747
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: more than an authority on the subject of race. Later

748
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, other European scholars produced imitations with

749
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 1: titles including Crania Britannica and Crannia Germanica. So only a

750
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 1: few copies of this book wherever printed. Morton paid the

751
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 1: modern equivalent of around fifty dollars to even have a

752
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 1: run of his book printed, and the copies cost around

753
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: two months wages for an average person, so only institutions

754
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,240
Speaker 1: were able to afford these books, but the whole idea

755
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: behind Crannia Americana was too good for the yellow press

756
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 1: to ignore. Cheap dime store magazines and newspapers ran spreads

757
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 1: on it, including crude copies of Morton's illustrations. So this

758
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 1: is how, for the first time, phrenological science spread to

759
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: the common man and the common woman. Quote in eighteen forty,

760
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,720
Speaker 1: the Ladies were Post a Tory, a magazine from Methodist

761
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: women in Ohio, quoted Morton in an article entitled Man.

762
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: The author described Native Americans as adverse to cultivation and

763
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,879
Speaker 1: slow and acquiring knowledge. For white settlers living to the west,

764
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: this was exactly what they wanted to hear. Crania Americana

765
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:17,240
Speaker 1: was published just as the remaining Shawnee peoples of Ohio

766
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: were forcibly relocated west of the Mississippi River. Yeah, so

767
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:25,239
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that phrenology was not initially accepted by

768
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:28,840
Speaker 1: the European literati. The scientific establishment continued to Harvard doubts

769
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: about whether or not it was nonsense, but the sheer

770
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: popularity of newsletters and journals in that era, and the

771
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: expansion of the global post through which people at Caldwell

772
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: and Comb could work out their ideas without pesky peer review.

773
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,320
Speaker 1: Meant that ideas behind phrenology spread through the common classes

774
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 1: even when they met with resistance from the scientific establishment.

775
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like how the Internet has affected

776
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: the spread of misinformation. You know, prior to this era

777
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 1: where you can send a letter to France and know

778
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: that you're going to get a letter back, ideas only

779
00:39:57,880 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: spread if you were to get your books published in

780
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 1: Universe season the universe. Other universities would buy that book

781
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: and there'd be lecturing tours. Now people can spread their

782
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: ideas via mail and via newsletters, and so people who

783
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 1: are living on the prairie in the middle of nowhere

784
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 1: can get a magazine with drawings of different people's skulls

785
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 1: and read about this thing that you know, fifty years

786
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: ago would never have gotten off of Harvard's campus. Plus also,

787
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: and right then seeing that picture, seeing that smart people

788
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: that we venerate and pay lots of money to our

789
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 1: saying these things immediately exonerated any feelings of guilt that

790
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: that person might have had about how they felt or

791
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: how they were treating these people whose land they were stealing.

792
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. It's this kind of thing where and I

793
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: think this is a really important dimension that we don't

794
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 1: often get to history. We hear about the terrible things

795
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: that happened, but you know, people who are watching the

796
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: forced relocation of the Native Americans, the white settlers, who

797
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: would have seen aspects of the trail of tears. Some

798
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: of those people may have been sociopaths, but most of them.

799
00:40:57,520 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: You watch human being suffering that way, and it does

800
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 1: something to you. You need a lot of justification to

801
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,359
Speaker 1: sort of ignore the terrible things that you're seeing. Um.

802
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: I think it's the same with slavery. Now we're going

803
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: to uh continue to talk about sort of how phrenology

804
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: spread through the post and how it became a global

805
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: science and wound up being sort of one of the

806
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 1: underpinnings of the idea of colonialism. But first we're going

807
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:27,360
Speaker 1: to talk about products and services. So yeah, here's some

808
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: ads and we're back. Those were some lovely ads. Uh

809
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:41,719
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, yeah, really good. Better than phrenology. I'm

810
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and say that all of the products

811
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 1: that support us are better than phrenology, which is a

812
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 1: low bar. So let's get back into it. Phrenology was

813
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 1: not initially accepted by European you know scientists. The high

814
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:57,400
Speaker 1: ranks of sort of like the British loved it, but

815
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:59,800
Speaker 1: out on the continent it was not very popular this

816
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: sientific establishment. Harvard Grave doubts about whether or not it

817
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:06,240
Speaker 1: was nonsense, but the sheer popularity of newsletters and journals

818
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: in that area in the mid eighteen hundreds and the

819
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: expansion of the global post allowed it to spread like wildfire.

820
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: And in fact, when phrenology adherents were forced to defend

821
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: their super new, super racist science, they often argued that,

822
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 1: in essence, how could it be bullshit if it was

823
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: so popular, I'd like to read another quote from that

824
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 1: historical journal article and phrenology in the post quote. For

825
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: these nineteenth century materialists, the global was also a guarantee

826
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: of truth. Com made this explicit when he challenged Thomas Stone,

827
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: one of the foremost critics of phrenology in Edinburgh, to

828
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: explain how a false science could have so quickly spread

829
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: over Europe and taken root in Asia and America. According

830
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: to Comb, nothing but the force of truth could account

831
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:46,839
Speaker 1: for the emergence of phrenology as a global science. If

832
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: people are talking about it. It's got to be true, right, Yeah,

833
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 1: it's always worked with science. You get the people talking

834
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 1: and it just becomes true, exactly, exactly. That's why Twitter

835
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 1: has been the greatest tool for the spread of truth

836
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 1: in in human history. Yeah, and it's hilarious, but it

837
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:05,839
Speaker 1: actually is true. In reality, it is true. And really,

838
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: I mean it's true that people's minds do work that

839
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 1: way because someone will see on Facebook a post that's

840
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: been shared a hundred thousand times about how m s

841
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: thirteens hiding in this migrant caravan, or something like we're

842
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: all sitting on the frontier reading our newspapers about how

843
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,959
Speaker 1: one group's inferior to us, so we can feel better

844
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:23,839
Speaker 1: about how we lock them up. Yeah, exactly like that.

845
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: People don't change. We just get like three percent smarter

846
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: every hundred and twenty years, or we we trance. We

847
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 1: go from one group to another. Okay, all right, this

848
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: group went through this horrible struggle that lasted forever and

849
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: then they were you know, beaten up and mistreated by everybody.

850
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,319
Speaker 1: But now we think they're okay, let's move on to

851
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: the next group and do the same thing to them.

852
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: Rather than learn from just one group that that that

853
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 1: extrapolates onto every human being. Yeah, and that is that

854
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:55,479
Speaker 1: is an uncomfortable reality. Like, it's not that people learn

855
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: in mass that racism is wrong. It's that they learned like, oh,

856
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 1: it's wrong to be raceist against the Irish, and then

857
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 1: they learn it's wrong to be racist against the Germans,

858
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 1: and then eventually they learn, oh it's wrong to be

859
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 1: racist against black people, but they're still racist against or

860
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe they move beyond racist and say,

861
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 1: you know, people who live in this country are you know,

862
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: but it has nothing to do with race or whatever.

863
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 1: But yeah, getting people to see other people as human

864
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: beings is a big, long, uphill battle. Uh, that's been

865
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:27,839
Speaker 1: going on. I wonder. I mean, I'd like to think

866
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:31,719
Speaker 1: that we're eventually going to run out of others and

867
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 1: finally everybody will fall under, you know, the umbrella of acceptance,

868
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: general acceptance. I mean, I feel like if aliens show

869
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: up and they're the kind of aliens we can beat

870
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: in a fight, that might really deal the deathblow to

871
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 1: racism once we have another intelligent species to be racist against. Like, yeah, well,

872
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 1: there's nothing that gets a country together better than war,

873
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:55,280
Speaker 1: you know, nothing gets people under the nationalists of flags

874
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: and then war. Does you know, I think if there

875
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: were an alien war, yes, the whole globe would come together. Yeah, exactly,

876
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: and that would be the end of one type of

877
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:10,920
Speaker 1: racism and the beautiful beginning of a new kind of racism. Yeah. So, now,

878
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:16,439
Speaker 1: as phrenology became a global science, it started to pick

879
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:19,040
Speaker 1: up in popularity on the continent. They hadn't liked it

880
00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 1: when you know, Gaul had been sort of going around

881
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 1: and measuring the skulls of convicts very much for you know,

882
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: the reasons that Napoleon stated. But they really came to

883
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,080
Speaker 1: like it when it provided a justification for why Europeans

884
00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: should rule Africa. That's kind of what the Europeans started

885
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 1: being like, Oh, okay, maybe this is true. Since we

886
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:39,920
Speaker 1: feel like we should own everything in this continent and

887
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,720
Speaker 1: this science seems to justify why we should own everything

888
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: in this continent, maybe we're okay with phrenology now. So,

889
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 1: phrenology had a mixed impact on slavery. You can really

890
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:51,839
Speaker 1: make a good case that it further to abolition even

891
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 1: more than it furthered the cause of slavery. It's it's

892
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: a muddled issue, um, it definitely had a negative issue

893
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: on sort of American policy towards Native Americans, clear, but

894
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: phrenology had a very one sided impact on the birth

895
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 1: of colonialism. Because, after all, if science had proved that

896
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: some people were meant to be ruled and others to rule,

897
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: what argument could you make against the British empire scooping

898
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:15,399
Speaker 1: up every last sliver of land they could find. Now,

899
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 1: when we come back on Thursday, we're going to talk

900
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: about another nation who had a love affair with phrenology, Belgium.

901
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: We're going to trace how this quirky little skull measuring

902
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: science helped cause one of the worst genocides in the

903
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 1: twentieth century to actually justified Nazi sterilization methods. And of

904
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: course we're going to talk about how capitalism and phrenology

905
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: combined to make an industry out of stealing the bones

906
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: of non white people. So that's coming up on Thursday. Josh,

907
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,479
Speaker 1: you got any plug doubles you wanna plug on down

908
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: the plugging town? Sure? Yeah, you can check out s

909
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 1: Y s K podcast on Twitter and Instagram. You can

910
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: check me out. I'm Josh um Clark. I say um

911
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 1: a lot, So it's in my Twitter and Instagram handle.

912
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: And I started a hashtag for my series The End

913
00:46:57,920 --> 00:46:59,799
Speaker 1: of the World with Josh Clark, which you can get

914
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 1: everywhere you get podcasts. It's hashtag e O t W

915
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,880
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. I do feel like UM is the comma

916
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 1: of the podcasting industry. Oh yeah, I just did it now.

917
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:12,760
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't be able to get through an episode

918
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: without quite a few moms. So no, I don't know

919
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:18,439
Speaker 1: how we would. No, No, it's it's necessary. It's better

920
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: than silence, but easier than words. All right, I'm Robert

921
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: Evans and this has been Behind the Bastards. We will

922
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: be back Thursday with part two. Until then, you can

923
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: find these sources for this episode on our website Behind

924
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 1: the Bastards dot com. You can find me on Twitter

925
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:36,359
Speaker 1: at I right, okay, I have a book you can

926
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:38,840
Speaker 1: find on Amazon dot com averef History of Vice. You

927
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 1: can find our t shirts at the public Behind the Bastards.

928
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 1: You get shirts, you can get phone cases, you can

929
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: get coffee mugs, you can get wraps for your hum Vy,

930
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: you can get painted coats for your machine guns. None

931
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,400
Speaker 1: of those things you're shaking your head on. Some of these, No,

932
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 1: Sophie well, you can get stickers. You can put a

933
00:47:57,760 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 1: sticker on anything so you can cover your hum vy

934
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 1: and sticker, so someone by a hundred and fifty stickers,

935
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 1: and coda humphy and then all right, that's that's the episode.

936
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans, and until next time, I love about

937
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 1: of you. H m