Intelligence measurement, Normalization and Fascism inArgentina in the 1930s

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show the relevance of the consideration of the measurement of intellectual level had for the movement of social medicine and biotypology in Argentina in the 1930s, in relation to Italian fascism. This analysis is based on the Annals published by the Asociación Argentina de Biotipología, Eugenesia y Medicina Social (Argentine Association of Biotypology, Eugenics and Social Medicine, AABESM), which had among its main goals the resolution of population problems through proposals for legal intervention and public policies. It is argued that the way intelligence was considered in social medicine could respond to fascist and catholic eugenics and that the representatives of this model projected an ideal society based on an order according to different physical and intellectual abilities that should be subordinated to the state. Finally, it is shown that the AABEMS was devoted to the eugenic exaltation of intelligence through the proposal of a proper government administration of defense against both hereditary and environmental threats. For this purpose, classification and standardization measures were sought. the determination of the intellectual level played an important role in achieving population administration according to natural precepts of government.