Hermeneutics is a fancy word used by theorists that means, roughly, interpretation. The phrase derives mostly from the field of biblical hermeneutics, but it was taken over by folks like the French theorists.
of suspicion refers to the tendency of these modernist thinkers to undermine traditional ideas and comfortable assumptions. Marx argues that culture, art, music, any human accomplishment is essentially nothing but a decorative superstructure on what is really important, namely, economics. Freud argues that you may think you are a rational being in control of yourself, but in fact you are run by your subconscious, which you can't even see. Some would add Nietzsche as another major source of suspicion. God is dead, religion is a copout, morality is for weaklings, and basically the strongest deserve to prevail because at least they don't believe in slavish superstitions like Christianity.
Communists talk about "demystification," which is to teach people that everything they thought important is really meaningless. Religion is the opiate of the people, morality is a capitalist obfuscation, much art and music is merely a means of distracting people from realizing that they are victims of the bosses, and so forth.
Deconstruction fits into this. You take everything apart: books, art, ideas, and basically find that they are all the same and all meaningless.
Darwin fits the pattern because it's a small step from Darwinist theory to saying that spirit, religion, art, and so forth are all just illusory, because human beings are purely material products of blind chance. Like Nietzsche, Darwin has been drawn on by numerous racists and totalitarian theorists, and some of these tendencies can be found already in The Origin of Species, where Darwin argues that white Europeans are superior to other races and people.
"Darwin fits the pattern because it's a small step from Darwinist theory to saying that spirit, religion, art, and so forth are all just illusory, because human beings are purely material products of blind chance. Like Nietzsche, Darwin has been drawn on by numerous racists and totalitarian theorists, and some of these tendencies can be found already in The Origin of Species, where Darwin argues that white Europeans are superior to other races and people."
This is the ugly side effect of Darwinism that Darwinists, at least the nice ones, hate to deal with. While it says nothing as to the truth of Darwinism, it says volumes as to how this debate ultimately affects mankind.
If there is no God, then Marx was right..."there is no morality.." Fortunately the nice Darwinists have Theists to save them from such a horrendous society.
Darwin did NOT argue this, anywhere, but certainly not in The Origin of Species. Humans and human evolution aren't even discussed in that book.
Try The Descent of Man. Darwin does make various points that assume the cultural superiority of Europeans. There are also some passages that are ambiguous as to whether you might interpret them as referring to biological or cultural causes. But there is no outright racism in Darwin, especially not by the standards of his time, in comparison to which Darwin was very liberal on race.
For instance Darwin is EASILY less racist than Abraham Lincoln, who DID explicitly believe that blacks were biologically inferior, even though he thought they still deserved completely equal political and moral treatment. I'm not putting down Lincoln, btw. I'm a huge fan of Lincoln. As to the issue of race I evaluate him in historical context and reject the ahistorical, leftist gotcha tactics.
Thanks--I looked up hermeneutics, but still couldn't figure it out--although I think I *used* to know what it meant when I was editing.
From what you write and the way you write, I think you might enjoy "I Am Charlotte Simmons"--T. Wolfe, and a movie called "Great Water" filmed in Macedonia.