A person who believes that societies or organisms naturally decline or become worse over time.
From degeneration (from Latin degenerare, 'to fall away from one's kind') plus -ist suffix denoting a person who adheres to a particular theory or practice.
Degenerationists were especially influential in 19th-century Europe, where they used this theory to justify racial hierarchies and eugenics policies—a sobering reminder that scientific-sounding theories can be misused to harm people.
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