Social Darwinism

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Institution

Social Darwinism

In the (1789) Essay on the principle of population by Malthus’s what struck Darwin was the observation that in nature both animals and plants produced far more offspring’s than can survive in addition the fact that man if left unchecked was capable of overproducing. According to Malthus this observation stressed that unless there is a regulation on family sizes; issues like man’s famine problems would grow to become a global epidemic that would eventually consume man. This interested Darwin since it was somehow parallel to his own theory of natural selection which he was working on at that time.

The main reason that made Charles Darwin hesitant to publicize his evolution theory for twenty one years included facts like he was not sure how the society would welcome his research findings and the impact it would have once made public. He had also witnessed the criticism that other scholars had received on the subject and he wanted to be absolutely sure of his work before publication, which due to his bad health he was not sure he could take negative criticism. His theory also did not agree with his Christian faith that went against the bible creation theory and in addition since he came from a family of known researchers like his grandfather he was careful not to bring any disgrace to the family name (Richards, R. J ,1983).

Social Darwinism can be defined as an essential belief that states that only the fittest and strongest should be prioritized while giving a total disregard for the afflicted or weak in the society. In the late 1800’s this belief was popularized in Europe and America. Social Darwinism centralized on the concept of survival of the fittest; in which humans were segregated by Social Darwinists into groups that are mainly based on races, and are judged through ancestors and genes (Crook, D. Paul, 1994).

I do agree that there is a close relation between Imperialism and Social Darwinism if looked at from the aspect of applying the human society concept of survival of the fittest. This can be shown from the basic Social Darwinism defense of imperialism which states that just like all other species mankind has to evolve so as to adopt to the scarce resources and through this process natural selection will help remove the weaker species, this is in line with imperialism which supports that the scarce resources only belong to the superior species, and that the lesser species should be removed from the gene pool. Both of these theories support the notion of only the strongest or fittest should have a share in reproduction and resources

Social Darwinism was used to justify Imperialism in Europe during and before the WW2 by using the idea that claimed that only the stronger race should survive while the weaker ones should die off. It was expanded to justify thoughts like the countries which were taken over or colonized needed help since they were weak, and due to this the greater country should enforce on it its customs. The Social Darwinism theory applied the idea of survival of the fittest and individual competition to the social races and hierarchies and in this manner the non-white races and lower classes had lost all rights to the survival struggle. This belief in white Europeans’ biological superiority justified white rule and the dominance of Western civilization.

In summery the 1869 Hereditary Genius book by Galton stated that the natural selection mechanisms were potentially sabotaged by human civilization this theory he greatly borrowed from the initial Darwin ideas. His reasoning showed that, the weak and underprivileged relied on protection in many societies, according to him such societies were at odds with the theory of natural selection which was solely responsible for the extinction of the weaklings, and only through reviewing its social policies can a society be saved from reverting to mediocrity. With this explanation Galton advocated for reproduction of the brightest and only the best while discouraging reproduction of the unfit and those of poor physical health mainly by sterilizing the ill and restricting foreign immigration (Francis Galton, 1883)

Aryan Physics or Deutsche Physik can be described as a nationalist movement of the German based community mainly in the 1930s that went against the work of modern theoretically based physics and Albert Einstein; it was also labeled as Jewish physics. The effects it had is that it failed to prevent the use of relativity and quantum mechanics by the energy scientists which led to mass suffering of the education of many engineers and young scientists, not only from the political interferences and appointments but also from the loss of many Jewish scientists. The initially established research on aerodynamics was greatly affected by the massive loss of science and the interference which lasted even after the war it can be presumed that the Deutsche Physik affected other areas that were related to war research to which physicists normally contributed like communications, radar and chemistry.

The main reason why the Nazis were so obsessed with racial purity included aspects like the wrong labeling of the Germans as Aryans by Hitler, which he effectively used to propagate his ideas of Herrenvolk or pure German race. In this manner the Nazi believed that it was the rightful duty of the Aryan’s to achieve global domination since they were the superior race and had pure blood. An ideal Aryan according to the Nazi and Hitler had blonde hair, pale skin and blue eyes. Anybody not exhibiting these qualities was viewed as evil and impure and so had to be expunged from existence and in particular the main threat were the Jews, according to their league table of categorizing races the Aryans toped while the Gypsies, Jews and Black people were at the bottom. These inferior people were regarded as a threat to the strength and purity of the German nation. Originally the term Aryan in the old Indian language and society is used to describe the upper class as being noble; however the Germans linked the Aryan word for noble with their Ehre which means honor and justified that the word meant honorable people in Aryan.

Some examples of people and institutions that tried to resist the Nazi eugenics include faction’s like the 1920 to 1945 Catholic resistance which was varied and widespread and openly manifested in the actions of people from all the levels of the catholic hierarchy from the religious orders, the papacy, lay people and the parish clergy. The Catholic Church ideologically rejected the pseudo-science of the Nazi racism and eugenics and the underpinned ultra-nationalism embedded in the Nazi ideology, and preached instead for unity of the different races. Another resistance came from the Jewish women and men in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 when they realized that they were being deported to the Treblinka extermination camp; they took up arms and rebelled against the Nazi (Graml, Mommsen, Reichhardt & Wolf; 1970).

The reason why Himmler was against Christianity was due to the fact that the religion was too strong to be abolished or controlled and due to this it stood in their way as they tried to establish a hegemony in the society. Due to this Himmler saw it necessary to stop its influence by stripping off its strength through facilitating its abolishment. He intended to replace it with paganism that centralized on mysticism that at that time was prevalent.

Reference

Richards, R. J. (1983). “Why Darwin Delayed, or Interesting Problems and Models in the History of Science”, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences.

Crook, D. Paul (1994) Darwinism, War and History: The Debate over the Biology of War from the ‘Origin of Species’ to the First World War

Graml, Mommsen, Reichhardt & Wolf; (1970) the German Resistance to Hitler; B. T. Batsford Ltd; London

Francis Galton, (1883) Inquiries into human faculty and its development , London, Macmillan,