Around 1860 an Augustinian monk in the Moravian town of Brno used the garden of his monastery for experiments in breeding peas and beans. He was not surprised that when green and yellow peas are crossed, both green and yellow offspring are produced. But occasionally it also happened that the greens among them, even if they were then only reproduced with other greens, still produced yellow ones. Apparently there was a yellow potential in the green ones. This indicated that there is a “dominant” and a “recessive” inheritance of traits. The monk who made this discovery was called Gregor Johann Mendel. He called uncrossed peas genetically “pure”. But why did he call crossed specimens “hybrid” instead of “mixed”?
Well, among other things he was a Greek teacher at the monastery school. He knew the basic meaning of the ancient Greek word hubris: self-arrogance; Pride; Transgression of the God-given order of nature. When Icarus flew too high in the sky; when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, they lifted themselves up; they were hybrid. But peas? They can only be hybrid if they step out of their natural path by crossing them. It was no coincidence that Mendel began his crossbreeding experiments after he had failed his exams to become a biology teacher - with an examiner who did not want to know anything about fertilization as a fusion of two germ cells of equal rank and whom he had dared to contradict. He continued this insubordination in the monastery garden. He wanted to prove that both parents pass on significant traits,not just the dominant one. As a monk committed to strict obedience, he was actually not entitled to do that. It was hybrid. And did not his crossings of plants also strike the strands of the order of creation? When he combined the adjective “hybrid” with crossed peas, he implicitly spoke of his own hubris, which he reproached himself for as a scrupulous religious man as much as he tried to justify it. How could he penetrate the secrets of procreation without her?how he tried to justify them. How could he penetrate the secrets of procreation without her?how he tried to justify them. How could he penetrate the secrets of procreation without her?
“Negro” is downright harmless on the other hand
It was not until four decades later that academic genetics recognized his crossbreeding findings as Mendel's laws. And the adjective "hybrid"? She was happy to take over that. Around 1900 the idea of nature as a breeding establishment, which is designed to preserve the higher species and races and to protect them from mixing with the lower ones, was almost a scientific paradigm. The Greek foreign word came at just the right time. “Hybrid” became a weighty-sounding technical term for crossbreed or hybrid. The word broke away from its original meaning, spread beyond the natural sciences and is one of the particularly popular buzzwords today. Cars with gasoline and electric motors are called hybrid cars. So-called hybrid conferences have been booming since Corona, in which some participate physically and others online.And cultural mish-mash is often called “hybrid culture”.
Mendel could not have known what would become of his choice of words. As soon as the word “hybrid” found its way into academic genetics, which was primarily about people, not just about peas and beans, it began to broadcast the general message: mixed breeds are against the natural order. Conversely, it followed: The only natural thing is the unmixed, pure reproduction of species and races. And people of different skin color have long been thought of as belonging to different human races. Now it is completely safe to call children of one black and one white parent a mixed race. But to call mixed race hybrids is a manifestly racist linguistic rule. “Negro” is downright harmless on the other hand.
If this word were not damaged to the point of uselessness by its history of abuse - there would be nothing to be said against it, it is merely the Latin word for "black" that in itself does not in the least encourage people with black skin to be regarded as "inferior" or " Subhuman ", while" hybrid "implies" unnatural "or" alien ". But that doesn't bother anyone in the anti-racist milieu. One should no longer be allowed to speak of “illegal work” in order not to defame people who do it as negroid. But to say “hybrid” is chic. It seems to mean something like “diverse” and smells like overcoming binary and heteronormativity.
Which words are hyped and which are ostracized obviously depends not insignificantly on the type and level of education.
Anyone who does not know what hubris means cannot take offense at the adjective "hybrid".
But then he shouldn't spread himself out of them with words whose meaning and origin he doesn't understand.