Much as the introduction of phrenology to the United States was heralded by intellectual elites as a valid and exciting new science, eugenics at the turn of the 20th century was widely embraced by elite scientists, social reformers, politicians, pundits, priests, and the public. It was taught in universities, preached in pulpits, and spread in state fairs and “Better Baby” and “Fitter Family” exhibits and contests.
Eventually, eugenics came to shape — and continues to shape — political and cultural discourse about who is fit to reproduce. Among other things, the enthusiasm for eugenics led, in the United States, to tens of thousands of individuals, mostly Black and Indigenous women and institutionalized individuals, to be sterilized — often against their will or without their knowledge.
In The New Yorker, Farrow referred to phrenology as a “pseudoscience.” Indeed, that seems to be a standard — and well-meaning — way to strip the practice of its intellectual legitimacy. The headline to this piece on Arc by Kevin Bird is illustrative.
But framing phrenology as a “pseudoscience” creates two problems.
One, as I recently argued, this framing “neglects the long-term influence of phrenology and related ‘failed’ sciences.” It also makes it easy to turn phrenology and its believers into a joke, discounting the very real consequences of this kind of thinking.
These sciences, “pseudo” or not, have real stakes. The embrace of mid-19th-century racial science helped justify the continued enslavement of Black Americans and the forced removal of Indigenous Americans from their lands. The embrace of eugenics led to thousands of women of color being sterilized against their will, including such figures as civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer.
A self-described adherent of phrenology helped to storm the Capitol. His embrace of this 19th-century science, which was so tied to racialized (and gendered, and classed, and ableist) assumptions about appearance and ability, signal the continued hold of these sciences on the modern mind. Phrenology and other 19th-century sciences impinging on race and identity have always been political in nature, and their influence continues to echo in modern political discourse. The ripple effects are widespread and ongoing, intersecting in unsurprising ways with right-wing political discourse.
Responding to a related development (the uses of facial-recognition software), Emma Bell asked me on Twitter, “Why is phrenology having a comeback?” As I suggest in my book, it isn’t. Phrenology isn’t having a comeback because it never left us. It shapes our language, assumptions, and prejudices into the present, and in so doing shapes our political discourse and realities. I don’t think we ever have abandoned phrenology — or ever will.