Talk:Cesare Lombroso
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[edit] Nordau
What is that about Nordau? Is it Max Nordau? The article says nothing about his contribution to phrenology.
S.
- I just finished the Max Nordau article, and added the sentence about phrenology immediately afterwards. It seems I need another cup of coffee. Both Nordau and Lombroso figure in the degenerate art article, and it seems I mixed them up. It's fixed now --- Ihcoyc
[edit] Jewish
Wasn't Lombroso a Jew? That would make ironic that his work was to be used by racists.
>> yes, he was born in the jewish ghetto of Verona and the real name was Ezechia Marco.
[edit] Social Darwinism
- Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) is a historical figure in modern criminology, and the founder of the Italian Positivist School of criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School assumption based upon Social Darwinism, whose determination of crime was that it was a characteristic trait of human nature. Lombroso's theory was that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic.
- Lombroso popularized the notion of a born criminal through biological determinism. Criminals have particular physiognomic attributes or deformities. Physiognomy concerns estimating characteristics from physical features of the face or the body. Whereas most individuals evolve, the violent criminal had devolved, and therefore were societal, or evolutionary regressions. If criminality was inherited, then the born criminal could be distinguised by physical atavistic stigmata, such as large jaws, high cheek bones, handle-shaped ears, hawk-like noses, or fleshy lips.
I appreciate the obviously researched work that's gone into this recently. But I wonder whether the second sentence is wrong, or just badly phrased. The notion that some people are born criminals through biological determinism, that criminal tendencies are heritable, and that they manifest as evolutionary throwbacks would strike me as being pretty diagnostic of Social Darwinism. The "classical school" that criminal behaviour is a characteristic, universal trait of human nature, strikes me as pre-Darwinian and (in a European context) Christian; compare the doctrine of original sin. The paragraph struck me as wrong, but then may only be ambiguous; I think that given what the rest of the paragraph says, it should say unambiguously that Lombroso was a Social Darwinist.
Some note should probably be taken of eugenics, the business about Jukes and Kallikaks, and so forth, in this as well, if only by way of a see-also. -- Smerdis of Tlön 18:28, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I can't seem to find my copy of The Mismeasure of Man (too many books, not enough order), so I can't check this at the moment, but it sounds like the second sentence there is trying to say that Lombroso rejected the Classical School assumption that crime was just an aspect of human nature in general on the basis of Social Darwinism and his theory of criminality. That is, it sounds like it is just not clear and the clauses are in a more or less incorrect order. But I'd like to check this to make sure—it's the "based upon" part that I want to make sure I'm interpretting correctly (as being incorrectly worded). --Fastfission 20:04, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
