It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!
Deliberately or not, he helped give rise to atheistic sociakism and the idea that men could be turned into superman if evolutionary pressures applied.
I am not a Darwinist, but Reformed Social Darwinism suggests that the intelligence and creativity and conscience we have developed can be used to allow for and even foster the survivability of the many, as mere survival is not the only goal of life. Even in a straight natural selection play, there is no guarantee that more intelligence or strength by itself improves survivability. Social “skills” from bees on up have a role.
If memory serves it was Darwin’s cousin who was a very vocal supporter of eugenics.
Social Darwinism was a misreading of Decent of Man to support racist beliefs and ideologies. “Fitness” is determined by the ecological niche for a human population. White skinned Germans would be at a substantial disadvantage living in sub-Saharan Africa without the survival skills and adaptations of the locals in Namibia. There is no universal form of “fitness.”
In a state of nature without laws or moral constraints those with a “strong will” domininate those with a “weak will.” This was accepted even in advanced societies like Greece and Rome that considered slavery to be moral.
Modern civil society evolved to constrain those with a strong will through laws, customs, and moral traditions to maintain a semblance of peace rather than living in the perpetual “parabellum,” of all against all.
What ultimately stopped WWI was the stronger will of Great Britain, France, and the USA to defeat the weaker will of the Second Reich military cult and restore a state of peace.
This holds true even today with test of will between Radical Islam and the Enlightened Western democracies. Islam is banking on the West preferring to live on their knees as slaves rather than standing and fighting (once again) for individual freedom.
NO