Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism

A loose set of ideologies that emerged in the late 1800s in which Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was used to justify certain political, social or economic views.

Darwinists

believe in “survival of the fittest.” The idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better.

Justifications from Darwinism

Used to justify imperialism (following the Spanish-American War), racism, eugenics and social inequality.

Charles Darwin

Published On the Origin of Species in 1859. His theory of evolution by natural selection was a scientific theory focused on explaining his observations about biological diversity and why different species of plants and animals look different.

Herbert Spencer

Applied the idea of “survival of the fittest” to so-called Laissez-Faire Capitalism during the Industrial Revolution. Believed that people could genetically pass learned qualities such as frugality and morality onto their children. Opposed any laws they helped workers, the poor, and those he deemed genetically weak.

William Graham Sumner

Early opponents of the welfare state, viewed individual competition for property and social status as a tool for eliminating the weak and immoral of the population.

Laissez-Faire Capitalism

Unrestrained capitalism during the Industrial Revolution in which businesses are allowed to operate with little regulation from the government.

Sir Frances Galton

British scholar who launched a new ‘science” aimed at improving the human race by ridding society of its “undesirables.’ (aka Eugenics).

Eugenics in the U.S.

Popular social movement in the U.S. that peaked in the 1920s/30s. Books and films promoted eugenics, with most proponents reasoning the best way is to prevent “unfit” individuals from having children. Disproportionately targeted women, minorities, and immigrants and even continued in the U.S. until the 1970s.

Nazi Germany

Adolf Hitler was one of the world’s most notorious eugenicists who drew inspiration from California’s forced sterilizations of the “feeble-minded.” Nazis targeted certain groups or races that they considered biologically inferior (which he believed was weakening the German master race) for extermination (Jews, Roma, Poles, Soviets, People with disabilities and homosexuals.)

Social Darwinists Post WWII

Lost popularity in the United States due to their association with Nazi racial propaganda. Modern biological science has completely discredited the theory of social darwinism.

Sociologists vs biologists

Those in support of Social Darwinism were often corrupting Darwin’s language as they adapted them for their own social, economic, and political explanations. Basically, sociologists have not a clue what they are yapping about.

Herbert Spencer’s Example

a young woman from upstate New York named Margaret, whom he described as a “gutter-child.” Because government aid had kept her alive, Margaret had, as Spencer wrote, “proved to be the prolific mother” of two hundred descendants who were “idiots, imbeciles, drunkards, lunatics, paupers, and prostitutes.”

Immigrants and Rising S. Darwinism

As a massive number of immigrants came to the United States during the Second Industrial Revolution, white, Anglo-Saxon Americans viewed these newcomers—who differed from earlier immigrants in that they were less likely to speak English and more likely to be Catholic or Jewish rather than Protestant—with disdain. Many whites believed that these new immigrants, who hailed from Eastern or Southern Europe, were racially inferior and consequently "less evolved" than immigrants from England, Ireland, or Germany.