After the second world war, the belief that differences between so-called `racesī are genetic became taboo. Now, with the far right resurgent, itīs backIn 1985, historian Barry Mehler had a dream. His research was taking him deep into the murky territory of academiaīs extreme right wing. As he worked, he found his waking life beginning to soak into his subconscious, colouring his sleep. In his dream, his son, then two years old, was trapped in a runaway car hurtling down a hill. `The traffic is going in both directions, and I am in the middle of the road desperately waving my hands trying to stop the flow, in order to save the life of my son,` he tells me. `Itīs a metaphor for how I felt.`Mehler had been looking into what happened after the second world war to scientists who, during the conflict, had collaborated with the Nazis, were eugenicists or shared their racial worldview. `I was really focused on the ideological continuity between the old and the new,` he says. He learned that the fear of some kind of threat to the `white race` was still alive in some intellectual circles, and that there was a well-coordinated network of people who were attempting to bring these ideologies back into mainstream academia and politics. Continue reading...
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