Posted on 12/13/2006 10:16:21 AM PST by truthfinder9
One of the most pernicious and widespread fictions ever foisted on an unsuspecting public claims that Charles Darwin was not a social Darwinist. Not so. For example, in a letter to one William Graham dated July 3, 1881, Darwin wrote:
I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turk, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.
Nor were Darwin's own musings on the social implications of his theory limited to private correspondence. In one particularly chilling passage in Descent of Man he asserted, "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races." Even more ominously, this insouciantly expressed sentiment cannot be regarded as an illegitimate conclusion from the earlier and more reliable Origin of Species. In a passage historians often cite to prove that at the time of the Origin Darwin was still struggling to maintain his belief in God, Darwin actually, if unwittingly, promulgated the charter for all later social Darwinists: "Let the strongest live and the weakest die… . Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
How many inhuman social policies have been promoted from this dubious "scientific" theory?
Waiting for capitalism to come under attack as "economic Darwinism".
Waiting for capitalism to come under attack as "economic Darwinism".
And now how have things have changed in Europe! Of course there was selection. The best people were selected to go to the Western Front, the Concentration Camps and the Gulag. The very clever people selected to go to Ellis Island.
Hooah!
I believe a cousin of Darwin's was one of the main advocates of the Eugenics movement. His devotion to that cause was bolstered by Darwin's writings.
For your consideration. I might have mentioned this review in some of our discussions months ago.
It's undeniable that Darwin toyed with some eugenic ideas, but he was by no means the first one to do that. The eugenic movement is older than the theory of evolution. However, he was by no means a eugenicist in the sense that he lobbied the government for eugenic policies. He never did this. Yes, he talks about eugenic ideas in some of his works, but they are a tiny portion of his overall writing, and they're pretty vague when it comes to government policy. As a Victorian Englishman he held the mildly racist views fashionable in his society, but never did he at any time advocate genocide. To try to make him into a genocidal eugenicist, the article does a nice quote mine job, ripping passages out of context to distort their meaning. For instance, they take that oft-quoted passage from the Descent of Man about the civilized human races eventually exterminating the more barbarous ones. If you actually read the passage in context, you will note that this is a prediction of what would happen, not a prescription of what he thought ought to happen. His opposition to slavery and other actions indicate that he did not want to see it happen.
Then there's this passage in the article:
Karl Marx asked if he might dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin, which request Darwin declined only because he did not want to offend the religious sensibilities of his deeply Christian wife.
Which is pure BS, and shows the author didn't do any homework, nor does he even know what is contained in Das Kapital. Darwin's letter to Marx is available online, and it clearly indicates that he declined the dedication because he did not know anything about economics and didn't wish his name to be associated with a controversial economic "theory" (if you wish to dignify Marxism with that label) he was unable to evaluate. The notion that Darwin declined the dedication because of his wife's religion is laughable, given that Marx largely ignores religion in this particular book. Yes, Marx was a rabid anti-Christian, but he saved his anti-Christian ravings for other books. Das Kapital barely mentions the topic, as it is a (poor) attempt at pure economic analysis.
When the article started quoting From Darwin to Hitler, I stopped reading. That shoddy book has been discredited on this forum so many times, it is simply not worth any time dealing with it any more.
The bellicose "struggle for existence" view dates back at least to Hobbes, but Darwin certainly gave it a boost through his works' confusion of ethical and biological imperatives.
Suppose you tell us why it's not ... that would be a more fruitful way for you to start an argument.
It follows the same process of progress and evolution through "survival of the fittest" that Darwin describes in his theories. If it is "Darwinism" it must surely be evil.
If human societies ran according to the principles of Darwinian evolution, they would be evil -- or at least, would be prone to domination by people who are most capable of getting away with the sorts of things we consider to be evil.
We have moral strictures against such activity, though, and people tend to restrain their actions as a result.
Like any other economic system, capitalism is actually just a subset of human social interaction. So the same principles apply.
Societies that can adapt to change will thrive. Those that cannot stagnate and die out. There is nothing inherently evil about this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.