What is the Definitions of Social Darwinism?

Question

What is the Definitions of Social Darwinism?

Answer 1

Social Darwinism

–noun Sociology. a 19th-century theory, inspired by Darwinism, by which the social order is accounted as the product of natural selection of those persons best suited to existing living conditions and in accord with which a position of laissez-faire is advocated.  

Also, social Darwinism.social Darwinism  

n.   The application of Darwinism to the study of human society, specifically a theory in sociology that individuals or groups achieve advantage over others as the result of genetic or biological superiority.

Answer 2

Social Darwinism is a quasi-philosophical, quasi-religious, quasi-sociological view that came from the mind of Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher in the 19th century. It did not achieve wide acceptance in England or Europe, but flourished in this country, as is true of many ideologies, religions, and philosophies. A good summary of Social Darwinism is by Johnson:

In these years, when Darwin's Origin of Species, popularized by Herbert Spencer as "the survival of the fittest, " and applied to races as well as species in a vulgarized form, Social Darwinism, the coming Christian triumph was presented as an Anglo-Saxon Protestant one.

Social Darwinism is by no means dead, for vestiges of it can be found in the present.

Answer 3

Social Darwinism in the most basic form is the idea that biological theories can be extended and applied to the social realm. The term was popularized in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter, and has generally been used by critics rather than advocates of what the term is supposed to represent (Bannister, 1979; Hodgson, 2004). While the term has been applied to the claim that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection can be used to understand the evolution of society, social Darwinism commonly refers to ideas that predate Darwin's publication of his theory. Just as competition between individual organisms drives biological evolutionary change (speciation) through "survival of the fittest", competition between individuals, groups, or nations drives social evolution in human societies. Others whose ideas are given the label include the 18th century clergyman Thomas Malthus, and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who founded eugenics towards the end of the 19th century. Some claim that it supports racism on the lines set out by Arthur de Gobineau before Darwin published his theories, which directly contradict Darwin's own work. However, some academic critics hold that Social Darwinism is a constructed concept, because Darwin originally wanted many of his findings to be translated into social policy. (see Eugenics and The Descent of Man) The classification of Social Darwinism constitutes part of the reaction against abuses of the n**i regime.

Darwinism and theories of social change

Further information: Social evolution and Uni-lineal evolution

The term "social Darwinism" first appeared in an 1879 article in "Popular Science" by Oscar Schmidt, followed by an anarchist tract published in Paris in 1880 entitled "Le darwinisme social" by Émile Gautier. However, the use of the term was very rare - at least in the English-speaking world (Hodgson, 2004) - until the American historian Richard Hofstadter published his influential Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944) during World War II.

Theories of social evolution and cultural evolution are common in Europe. The Enlightenment thinkers who preceded Darwin, such as Hegel, often argued that societies progressed through stages of increasing development. Earlier thinkers also emphasized conflict as an inherent feature of social life. Thomas Hobbes' 17th century portrayal of the state of nature seems analogous to the competition for natural resources described by Darwin. Social Darwinism is distinct from other theories of social change because of the way it draws Darwin's distinctive ideas from the field of biology into social studies.

Darwin's unique discussion of evolution was over the supernatural in human development. Unlike Hobbes, he believed that this pressure allowed individuals with certain physical and mental traits to succeed more frequently than others, and that these traits accumulated in the population over time, which under certain conditions could lead to the descendants being so different that they would be defined as a new species.

However, Darwin felt that "social instincts" such as "sympathy" and "moral sentiments" also evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man:[1]

Theorists and sources of social Darwinism



Herbert Spencer.Despite the fact that social Darwinism bears Darwin's name and Darwin's works were widely read by social Darwinists, the theory also draws on the work of many authors, including Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics. Some historians argue that Darwin distanced himself from social Darwinism in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to s*x (1871).[citation needed]

Herbert Spencer's ideas, like that of evolutionary "progressivism", stemmed from his reading of Thomas Malthus, and his later theories were influenced by those of Darwin. However, Spencer's major work, Progress: Its Law and Cause (1857) was released two years before the publication of Darwin's Origin Of Species, and First Principles was printed in 1860. In regards to social institutions, there is a good case that Spencer's writings might be classified as 'social Darwinism'. He argues that the individual (rather than the collectivity) is the unit of analysis that evolves, that evolution takes place through natural selection, and that it affects social as well as biological phenomena.

In many ways Spencer's theory of "cosmic evolution" has much more in common with the works of Lamarck and Auguste Comte's positivism work than Darwin. Darwin's theory is concerned with population, while Spencer's deals with the way an individual's motives influence humanity. Darwin's theory is probabilistic, i.e., based on changes in the environment that sooner or later influence the change of individuals, but do not have any single, specific goal. Spencer's is deterministic (the evolution of human society is the only logical consequence of its previous stage), fatalistic (it cannot be influenced by human actions), single path (it travels a single path, cannot skip any stages or change them) and progressively finalistic (there is a final, perfect society that will be eventually reached). Darwin's theory does not equal progress, except in the sense that the new, evolved species will be better suited to their changing environment. Spencer's theory introduces the concept of social progress — the new, evolved society is always better than the past.



Thomas Malthus.Spencer's work also served to renew interest in the work of Malthus. While Malthus's work does not itself qualify as social Darwinism, his 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population, was incredibly popular and widely read by social Darwinists. In that book, for example, the author argued that as an increasing population would normally outgrow its food supply, this would result in the starvation of the weakest and a Malthusian catastrophe. According to Michael Ruse, Darwin read Malthus' famous Essay on a Principle of Population in 1838, four years after Malthus' death. Malthus himself anticipated the social Darwinists in suggesting that charity could exacerbate social problems. Another of these social interpretations of Darwin's biological views, later known as eugenics, was put forth by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in 1865 and 1869. Galton argued that just as physical traits were clearly inherited among generations of people, so could be said for mental qualities (genius and talent). Galton argued that social mores needed to change so that heredity was a conscious decision, in order to avoid over-breeding by "less fit" members of society and the under-breeding of the "more fit" ones.



Francis Galton.In Galton's view, social institutions such as welfare and insane asylums were allowing "inferior" humans to survive and reproduce at levels faster than the more "superior" humans in respectable society, and if corrections were not soon taken, society would be awash with "inferiors." Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of Descent of Man to discussion of Galton's theories. Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated any eugenic policies such as those which would be undertaken in the early 20th century, as government coercion of any form was very much against their political opinions.

Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy addressed the question of artificial selection, but it was built against Darwinian theories of natural selection. His point of view on sickness and health, in particular, opposed him to the concept of biological "adaptation", forged by Spencer's "fitness". He criticized both Haeckel, Spencer and Darwin, sometimes under the same banner. Nietzsche thought that, in specific cases, sickness was necessary and even helpful.[2] Thus, he wrote:

Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it. Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race.[3]

The publication of Ernst Haeckel's best-selling Welträtsel ('Riddle of the Universe') in 1899 brought social Darwinism and earlier ideas of "racial hygiene" to a very wide audience, and its recapitulation theory became famous. This lead to the formation of the Monist League in 1904 with many prominent citizens among its members, including the Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald. By 1909 it had a membership of some six thousand people.

The simpler aspects of social Darwinism followed the earlier Malthusian ideas that humans, especially males, need competition in their lives in order to survive in the future, and that the poor should have to provide for themselves and not be given any aid, although most social Darwinists of the early twentieth century supported better working conditions and salaries, thus giving the poor a better chance to provide for themselves and distinguishing those who are capable of succeeding from those who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or inferiority.

[edit] Social Darwinism and race

Further information: Racism and Scientific racism

The term social Darwinism has been retrospectively applied to concepts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries developed from the idea of racial superiority and competition as set out by Arthur de Gobineau in his An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (published in 1853–1855, before Darwin published his theory in 1858–1859). Although a simple racial view of social Darwinism was that the white nations had to civilize the savage colored nations of the world, there were other more complicated ones. Darwin's theories of evolution were used to distinguish differences between the races of man based on genetic branching and natural selection. Genetic branching is the process that occurs in all species, including humans, in which groups of a species become separated from one another, each developing their own genetic characteristics different from other groups. It is because of genetic branching that we today have the human races or human populations. Popular at the time was the idea that the Nordic race of Northern Europe was superior because it evolved in a cold climate, forcing it to develop advanced survival skills that it later applied in modern times by being expansionist and adventurous. Natural selection was also thought to have worked at a faster pace in the frigid north, eliminating the weak and unintelligent more thoroughly than it did in warm climates such as Africa. Nordicists reasoned that if animals adapted to their own climates, both physically and mentally, then humans did as well. These ideas were wholly supported by the leading anthropologists and psychologists of the day, including the esteemed biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, an early defender of Darwin's theories, for which he was nicknamed "Darwin's Bulldog", and the influential psychologist William McDougall.

A simpler racial attitude based on this "Social Darwinism" is the belief that races just need to be aggressive in order to survive. Darwin's theory of natural selection clearly saw each individual and species as being in a constant struggle for existence, with the best fitted prospering and less well suited tending to diminish in numbers, gradually leading to extinction. This was modified in such versions of "Social Darwinism" into the belief that throughout history it was the weak species and races that died out or were exterminated, with the White race regarded as the greatest race because it had an attitude of superiority and a will to conquer. The White man had conquered the savages in some places and in other places had simply wiped them out, as the Americans had done on their continent and the British had done in New Zealand and Australia. It was the White race that deserved to survive from the viewpoint of "survival of the fittest", but in the modern world the White race was falling victim to inner politics while the yellow and brown hordes of Asia were building up their strength in preparation to overthrow the White man's domination of the globe. Many believed that it was only a matter of time before the White race and its Western culture were supplanted by "inferior" races and cultures. These ideas were supported by many influential men in the early twentieth century, including the American journalist Lothrop Stoddard in his book "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy" and later an aviator Charles Lindbergh believed that the White nations should keep technological advances, especially aviation, to themselves for their own advantage.

Influence of social Darwinists

Europe

Ideas described by others as "social Darwinism" enjoyed widespread popularity in some European circles, particularly among German and British intellectuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Competition for empire encouraged increasing militarization and the division of the world into colonial spheres of influence. The interpretation of social Darwinism then emphasized competition between species and races, rather than cooperation.

Social Darwinism can be found in the plays of August Strindberg which give dramatic form to the grotesque sexual antagonisms of the constant war against men and women.

[United States

Spencer proved to be an incredibly popular figure in the 1870s, particularly in the United States. Authors such as Edward Youmans, William Graham Sumner, John Fiske, John W. Burgess, and other thinkers of the gilded age all developed theories of social Darwinism as a result of their exposure to Spencer (as well as Darwin).

Sumner never fully embraced Darwinian ideas, and some contemporary historians do not believe that Sumner ever actually believed in social Darwinism.[4] The great majority of American businessmen rejected the anti-philanthropic implications of the theory. Instead they gave millions to build schools, colleges, hospitals, art institutes, parks and many other institutions. Andrew Carnegie, who admired Spencer, was the leading philanthropist in the world (1890-1920), and a major leader against imperialism and warfare.

HG Wells was heavily influenced by Darwinist thought, and novelist Jack London wrote stories of survival that incorporate his views on social Darwinism[5].

Answer 4

The last answerer had a glimmer of what social Darwinism is. It is not " biology applied to societies ", as that is quite a valid methodology. It is rather a group selection type concept that in effect is in opposition to Darwin's theory. Herbert Spencer was the person who formulated this concept, by proposing that some groups were more evolutionarily fit than others. If you understand natural selection, then you understand this is basically incoherent. On the other hand, he, Herbert Spencer, made the error of thinking that what is natural, say, the station of the rich over the poor, was also " good " in a natural sense. G. E. Moore, with the " naturalist fallacy " concept, showed that some things can be natural, but not necessarily good.