Sugarcane

Education and Social Control

PS140O: Projecting Power

Prof Wasow

2026-03-17

Overview

• Eugenics: Continued Discussion

• Paglayan: Education and Social Order

• Night and Fog (1956)

• Sugarcane

Eugenics: How Did We Get Here?

Recall: Scientific Racism

• We’ve seen excerpts from The Eugenics Crusade in prior weeks

• Eugenics: “well-born” — the idea that human populations can be improved through selective breeding

• Embraced by scientists, politicians, reformers across political spectrum

The Genetics Problem

• Mendel’s peas suggested simple inheritance: one gene → one trait

• Eye color seemed to follow this pattern

• But early evidence showed human genetics were far more complicated

• Most traits are polygenic, influenced by many genes interacting

Why Does This Matter?

• Eugenicists wanted to believe race was essential and fixed

• If genetics are complex, the essentialist story falls apart

• Yet the ideology persists

Paul Ehrlich (1932–2026)

• Stanford biologist, author of The Population Bomb (1968)

• Died Friday in Palo Alto

• Represented Malthusian branch of eugenics tradition:

  • Aggregate population vs. Earth’s “carrying capacity”
  • Recommended legal limits on childbearing

• Vs. “family planning” branch: incentives for “right” people to have large families, “wrong” people to have small ones

Eugenics Left and Right

• 1920s–30s: American Eugenics Society embraced “family planning” as softer eugenics

• Post-WWII: Malthusians (Ehrlich, Hardin) warned of resource depletion, nuclear war

• 1974 UN Conference: Global South rejected population control as imperialist, “development is the best contraceptive”

• Today: economists push “demographic dividend”; bioethicists push birth limits for climate

Eugenics in California

• Third state to enact sterilization law; by 1921, 80% of U.S. sterilizations

• ~20,000 forced sterilizations between 1909 and 1979 (likely undercount)

• Stanford President David Starr Jordan: “race and blood” (1902)

• 2021: California enacted reparations for surviving victims

The California-Nazi Connection

• Hitler in Mein Kampf: “There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable… the United States”

• Called Madison Grant’s eugenics book his “bible”

• California eugenicists republished Nazi propaganda; arranged Nazi exhibits (1934, LA County Museum)

• C.M. Goethe (Sacramento): “You have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people”

• At Nuremberg, Nazis cited California laws in their defense

Discussion: How can “progressive” reforms serve elite interests?

Let’s hear from: [Selected students]

The Conventional View

• Education reduces poverty and income inequality
• Schools teach skills that help children escape poverty
• Mass education promotes democracy and economic growth

Paglayan’s challenge: If this were true, why do schools in many countries fail to teach basic skills?

Paglayan: A Different Story

• Central governments expanded education not primarily to build skills or reduce inequality

• Instead: to maintain social order and secure regime stability

• “Central governments went to great lengths to place the masses in primary schools under their control out of concern that the ‘unruly,’ ‘savage,’ and ‘morally flawed’ masses posed a grave danger to social order”

Two Transformations in Modern Education

1. Family → State: Governments took over the upbringing of children from parents, churches, and local communities

2. Expansion: Primary education spread from a handful of countries to virtually universal global norm

The Spread of State-Controlled Education

Figure 1.1: Percentage of countries where central government monitors primary school enrollment, 1820–2010 (Paglayan 2024)

Types of State Intervention

Figure 1.2: Types of state intervention in primary education in Europe and Latin America, 1800–2010 (Paglayan 2024)

When Did States Expand Education?

• Not primarily after democratization
• Not primarily after industrialization
• After internal conflict: civil wars, revolutions, mass protests

→ Elites feared breakdown of social order and used education to pacify the population

Education Expansion After Civil War

Figure 2.9: Primary school enrollment before and after civil wars in Europe and Latin America, 1828–2010 (Paglayan 2024)

Case Studies: Education After Conflict

Figure 2.10: Enrollment before and after civil wars in France, Finland, Colombia, and El Salvador (Paglayan 2024)

Primary School Enrollment Rates by Region

Figure 2.1: Primary school enrollment rates in Europe, the Americas, and the rest of the world, 1820–2010 (Paglayan 2024)

Why Did Western Societies Lead?

• Democracy?
• Industrialization?
• Military competition?

• Civil wars and threats to social order

Education Preceded Democracy

Figure 2.2: Timing of state intervention in primary education vs. first democratization (Paglayan 2024)

Education Preceded Industrialization

Figure 2.6: Timing of industrialization and timing of state intervention in primary education in Europe and Latin America (Paglayan 2024)

Indoctrination by Regime Type

Figure 6.1: Average education indoctrination index across different types of non-democratic regimes, 1946–2010 (Paglayan 2024)

Indoctrination and Critical Thinking

Figure 7.1: Indoctrination and critical thinking in education systems of democracies and autocracies, 1950–2021 (Paglayan 2024)

Student Exposure to Diverse Viewpoints

Figure 9.1: Frequency of student exposure to diverse viewpoints, by country, 2021 (Paglayan 2024)

Three Strategies for Social Control

Strategy	Method
Repression	Direct use of force
Concessions	Redistribute resources, address grievances
Indoctrination	Shape beliefs to accept status quo

What Is Indoctrination?

“The process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically”

• Not just what is taught, but how: no room for questioning or critical thinking

• Schools taught children “to obey existing rules and authorities, and accept the status quo”

Education as State-Building

• Schools transformed “so-called savages into well-behaved future citizens who would obey the state and its laws”

• Loyalty to God → Loyalty to the state

• The priest became a teacher certified by the state

• The temple became a school regulated and inspected by the state

Discussion: Why indoctrination instead of concessions?

Let’s hear from: [Selected students]

Discussion: Does Paglayan’s argument apply to residential schools? To education today?

Let’s hear from: [Selected students]

Indian Residential Schools

The “Problem” Settlers Faced

• Upon landing in North America, European settlers faced “a problem”: the land was not empty

• Policy “solutions” included:

  • Dispossession
  • Violence
  • Assimilation

“Kill the Indian, Save the Man”

• Goal: “civilize” Indigenous peoples by separating children from parents

• Children enrolled in European-style boarding schools

• Forced to adopt Western dress, cut hair, speak English

• Indigenous languages and cultural practices forbidden

Partnership of Throne and Altar

• Government funded schools; Christian churches operated them

• Ideology fused scientific racism with religious mission

• Indigenous peoples viewed as:

  • Biologically inferior (further behind in “march of civilization”)
  • But redeemable through European habits and Christian morals

Prime Minister MacDonald (1883)

“When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages… He is simply a savage who can read and write…. The Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence.”

Scale of the System

• ~150 residential schools operated across Canada
• ~150,000 children passed through the system
• Federal funding began in 1880s
• Last federally-funded school closed in 1997

What Happened in These Schools

• Malnutrition, forced labor, disease, death

• Physical and sexual abuse widespread

• At St. Anne’s: administrators built a homemade electric chair

• At St. Joseph’s Mission (Sugarcane): children gave birth to infants fathered by clergy

“A National Crime”

“Fifty per cent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education which they had received therein.”

— Duncan Campbell Scott, Head of Indian Affairs

• Federal medical officer called conditions “a trail of disease and death”

“Cultural Genocide”

• Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2008–2015)

• Final report concluded residential schools were a policy of “cultural genocide”

• Largest class action settlement in Canadian history

The US Parallel

• US operated 400+ similar Native American boarding schools

• Same logic: “Kill the Indian, save the man”

• President Biden issued official apology in 2024

Night and Fog (1956)

• Dir. Alain Resnais, narration by Jean Cayrol (survivor)

• 32 minutes

Discussion: What stood out? What connections did you see?

Let’s hear from: [Selected students]

Break

Sugarcane

Video Essay: Luca Cifolelli, Joaquin Antonio, Theodore Kuser

Comments

Rick’s Search for Answers

“It felt like I was watching a very young and lost boy trying to find answers, trying to convince himself that he was not at fault for the abuse, trying to heal from generational trauma—but his wife was always there with a snarky remark.”

— Ana Maria

Children’s Testimony

“Children of the past, even in these small, fragile inscriptions, testified more truthfully and revealed more about the school’s legacy than a living adult perpetrator ever would.”

— Genevieve

The Burden of Proof

“Colonial systems have long required the oppressed to prove their suffering using the tools imposed by their oppressors… Meanwhile, these systems retain the authority to declare their evidence as ‘insufficient.’”

— Camila

“Still Dying, Still Living”

“The community was shown to be ‘still dying’ through suicides… substance abuse, domestic abuse… and generational trauma. With that said, the community was shown to be ‘still living’ through Kamloopa, the active investigation, community gatherings, and passing down traditions.”

— Taylor

Rick Confronts the Church

“He used the Bible’s own words against them—‘apology is only the first step.’ He called them out, saying he had heard many apologies from the Catholic Church, including that morning when the pope gave a short apology that ended with a laugh—there were no promises to make amends.”

— Phoebe

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Questions?