Will explore what kinds of lives society considers desirable and undesirable
“There is a clear thread running from yesterday’s forced sterilisation to today’s self-optimisation,” says Professor Jan Grue. With NOK 12 million in funding from the Research Council of Norway, he and his fellow researchers will examine old and new ideas about which people are considered to have a right to exist — and which are seen as less valuable.
“We are asking whether we are moving towards a society in which we try to create ‘better people’, rather than creating a better and more just society,” says Jan Grue.
Grue is a professor at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. Together with Marie Lid, Professor at VID Specialized University, and Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Professor at UiO’s Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, he has received NOK 12 million in FRIPRO funding for the research project LIVES: Wanted and Unwanted Lives from Eugenics to Transhumanism.
Over four years, the researchers — whose backgrounds include theology, linguistics, disability studies and science fiction — will investigate the narratives promoted about good, desirable and socially useful lives, as well as the narratives simultaneously created about unwanted lives. They will also collaborate with international research communities, including in Europe and the United States.
Extermination and forced sterilisation
An important starting point is eugenics, a movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century and sought to improve humanity through the control of heredity and reproduction.
“Eugenics was strongly delegitimised because of its association with Nazism and racial hygiene,” says Jan Grue, who has focused on eugenics throughout much of his research career, particularly through its connection to the conditions and place of disabled people in society, both historically and today.
The sociology professor points to the mass murder of Jews, disabled people, people with mental illness and others whom the Nazis regarded as weak and unwanted during the Second World War.
“Despite what was known about this, parts of eugenic thought nevertheless survived after the war, including in Norway. Arguments in favour of eugenically motivated sterilisation included the need to safeguard a sustainable welfare state,” Grue explains.
He notes that Karl Evang, Norway’s long-serving Director of Health, rejected German racial hygiene but regarded eugenics as an important means of promoting the common good.
“Both historically and in its newer versions, eugenics is about improving humanity. But that also presupposes an idea of what humanity is to be improved from,” Grue stresses.
The freedom to have the “best possible” children
In the project LIVES: Wanted and Unwanted Lives from Eugenics to Transhumanism, Grue and his collaborators will both trace historical continuities and examine the present-day situation.
“We see old ideas reappearing in new forms. Among other things, we will investigate how old eugenic ideas have been given new life through the possibilities offered by gene editing, large-scale genomic studies, embryo selection and self-optimisation,” says Grue.
He emphasises that what might be described as “new eugenics” does not focus, as it once did, on forced sterilisation or state intervention.
“New eugenics is based on ideals of personal freedom — interpreted as parents’ right to create the ‘best possible children’,” he says.
Jan Grue, who has held several research positions in the United States, refers, among other examples, to the company Nucleus Genomics, which advertised in New York in 2025 with the slogan: “Have your best baby.”
“The company offers IVF involving a number of embryos, allowing parents to select the embryo believed to result in the smartest, tallest, healthiest or most beautiful child,” Grue explains.
He draws a direct line from this form of optimisation to the techno-utopian ideology that is influential in Silicon Valley, California.
The promise of an eternal, flawless life
The sociology professor says that new eugenics finds an extreme expression in so-called transhumanism: an ideology that seeks to enhance human beings to such an extent that they may in practice become a new species — living much longer, avoiding disease and, quite simply, transcending current human limitations. Elon Musk is among those who appear drawn to transhumanism.
Jan Grue believes that today’s ideals of self-optimisation belong to the same landscape.
“Biohacking, constant monitoring of the body and performance, and trends such as ‘looksmaxxing’ among young men are some of the signs of our times. But in practice, the desire to become ‘the best version of yourself’ often becomes a project of becoming the most productive version of yourself,” says Grue.
Must not be reduced to an individual concern
Having researched disability for many years, Jan Grue is concerned that disability, illness and vulnerability should not be dismissed as issues affecting only a limited group.
“All of us are, to varying degrees, vulnerable to illness, injury and accidents. If it does not affect us, it affects those close to us. We must recognise that vulnerability is part of human life and build society accordingly.”
He stresses that this is not about presenting illness or disability as something positive in itself, but about recognising vulnerability as part of human life and “building society accordingly”.
“We must build a society that is as well equipped as possible to care for the vulnerability that all of us carry simply by virtue of being human,” he stresses.
As a researcher in the field, he is particularly concerned about what happens if illness and disability are once again reduced to individual problems and personal tragedies. He points out that, throughout the twentieth century, disabled people fought for stronger legal protections, while the welfare state and structural changes improved life for many.
“If we are heading back towards a society in which illness and disability are once again reduced to an individual problem, then we are on entirely the wrong track,” says Jan Grue.