I originally posted this over a Daily Kos and it died what I consider an all too quick death (hubris, perhaps?). As I introduce myself to this community, I thought that reposting a couple of diaries I am proud of would be a good way to let people here know a little about me.
This is a work in progress. I would be quite interested in hearing what you think. Let me know if I have any glaring errors. This is a historical primer, and not meant to reveal any new strategies or anything.
We on the left often use phrases like Social Darwinism to describe the right and Enlightenment to describe our own positions. The truth is, both left and right philosophies spring from the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was not all peace, love, and equality. In fact, ideas now commonly called Social Darwinism are actually Enlightenment ideas, reclassified as Darwinism by people trying to dress the ideas in scientific garb. Our own values grew from the Enlightenment into what might best be classified as Modern Humanism.
To trace the divergent paths of Enlightenment philosophies, read across the bump:
The Enlightenment was a time of pre-scientific focus on nature. Enlightenment thinkers looked to nature, rather than the Bible or religion, for ideas on the meaning and nature of life. It is out of the Enlightenment focus on nature that the scientific revolution sprung, but the Enlightenment itself was not scientific and retained many pre-scientific prejudices. Enlightenment thought followed two different paths, one which lead to the left and the optimistic belief in human abilities and equality, and one which lead to the right and a belief in a natural hierarchy within and between human societies.
Contrary to what Social Darwinists think, Darwin and science do not validate the right’s ideas of social structure, but rather elucidate why these ideas are wrong. That is why the right has found such a comfortable synergy with fundamentalist religion: because they both deny science. How ironic that the right has taken ideas that originated as a denial of God, and married them with religion.
Darwin has gotten much credit for things he did not do. Evolution, for instance, was not his idea, but can be traced back to ancient times in one form or another. Darwin only came up with the mechanism of natural selection, which he adapted from the works of social economists. He knew nothing of the patterns of inheritance, which Gregor Mendel first studied, and neither Mendel nor Darwin knew anything about DNA. Likewise, Darwin had nothing to do with the theories supporting bigotry, except that those theories were greatly boosted by the general and scientific acceptance of Darwinian natural selection, which was then misapplied to society.
Social Darwinism isn’t really Darwinism. The idea that the poor were unfit, and the phrase “survival of the fittest” actually predate Darwin’s publication of “On the Origin of Species” (1859). They are ideas from Enlightenment social economists. These economists’ social ideas inspired Darwin’s biological ideas, and not the other way around.
From the Literary Encyclopedia:
Thomas Malthus, influenced by Townsend’s naturalism, deplored the lack of a mechanism to compel paupers to earn their own crust – the assistance system, as he saw it, sapped the nation’s moral fibre by encouraging immorality and over-population. Underlying such arguments was a denial of the traditional right of basic subsistence owed to the poor by the wealthy. Obligation and the social compact was yielding to the new pressure of market values. In an entrepreneurial vein, Jeremy Bentham’s Pauper Management (1795) proposed the setting up of workhouses in which the poor en mass would be compelled to work and removed from visibility; such institutions would be privately financed and run for profit.
Now who does that sound like? Republicans! 60+ years before Darwin published we have an almost perfect enunciation of the modern Republican philosophy. But the story goes on:
In America, early slaveholders often argued that Africans were not even human. Later slaveholders argued that slavery was the natural place for Africans in our society, where they would be the happiest and contribute the most. Even Enlightenment luminaries like Thomas Jefferson, who promoted the equality of man, thought this way (see my comment below for more on Jefferson’s attitude towards blacks). When they said man, they meant only white men. But, they made these arguments without benefit of a scientific theory on which to hang their hat.
Social economist Herbert Spencer is often credited with coining the phrase “survival of the fittest.” He published “Progress: Its Law and Causes” in 1857, just 2 years before Darwin (and Alfred Russell Wallace, lets not forget the Co-theorist) published “On the Origin of Species”. Spencer was a hugely vocal supporter of Darwin, because Spencer felt Darwinian natural selection could be used to support his own theories. Spencer believed that society was evolving toward increasing freedom for individuals, and so held that government intervention ought to be minimal in social and political life. He also felt that classes developed as a result of natural differentiation — that is, biologically superior people were more successful in society. He wrote in “Progress”:
So, while bigotry was not new, nor the argument that social class was a reflection of some natural order, the misapplication of Darwinian natural selection gave this bigotry the weight of science. Thus, the generally accepted term for the pseudo-science supporting bigotry is “Social Darwinism” not because Darwin came up with it or supported it, but because others relied on Darwinian thought to try and give their theories legitimacy.
Just look at the alternate title of “On the Origin of Species”: “The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” Darwin meant “races” in a biological sense, meaning something akin to subspecies or breed, but it didn’t stop people from applying it to human races (which are not even close to being distinct subspecies). Think of a Chihuahua versus a Saint Bernard for an example of what Darwin meant by “races”. They are both the same species, but far more different than a European is from an Asian or African. And this is where we see another irony: the Repubs reject evolution, thereby rejecting natural selection, yet they believe theories like The Bell Curve that purport to rely on Darwinian principals.
As I have stated previously, those theories misapply Darwinian and scientific knowledge. First, there is a huge difference in what Darwin meant by “fitness” and what Social Darwinists mean. For Darwin, the only important element of fitness is having offspring who have offspring who have offspring, thereby propagating an individual’s traits. In Social Darwinism, fitness typically means acquisition and control of resources. Ironically, those who expend their energy acquiring and controlling the most resources typically reproduce the LEAST. In a Darwinian sense, that makes them the least fit.
Early Social Darwinists recognized this conundrum and began promoting the idea that the reproduction of individuals in the lower classes should be regulated/restricted. The poor were thought to be poor because they are biologically inferior, so they should be prevented from reproducing and passing on inferior traits. Thus, eugenics was a major element of Social Darwinism until it became associated with the holocaust. Even people we now consider liberal pioneers supported eugenics. Margaret Sanger is lauded for pushing for legalized birth control, but one of her motivations was to limit the breeding of the inferior lower class. So here is yet another irony: the teaming of the Social Darwinists with the religious right, which is anti birth control.
Beyond the un-Darwinian application of the word “fitness”, Social Darwinists ignore a great deal of what science has revealed about the way nature works. Darwin recognized that there are “complex relations of all animals and plants throughout nature.” In short, we recognize that there is both competition and cooperation in nature. Two animals that work together are often more successful than even a very strong or fast animal of the same species working alone. Whether it is social animals that hunt or forage in packs or herds, or the little birds that pick stuck food from the teeth of hippos, animals rely on each other more than any of the Enlightenment social economists or today’s Social Darwinist theorists were/are willing to recognize or admit. Cooperation is, in fact, ubiquitous.
Humans are social animals. We form social groups out of a basic psychological/biological need/impulse. Because humans possess higher thought processes instead of relying on simple habit or instinct, our societies require organization. Religions are one way of organizing a society. Rule of law is another. In any case, organization means nothing without cooperation (or worse, it means tyranny to force cooperation). Even the free market relies on laws and rules and cooperation, though the right likes to pretend it is all about competition. Without regulation, the free market will become dominated by monopolies and then there is nothing free about it. The question that faces us now is where the balance should lie between competition and cooperation.
As I stated earlier, Enlightenment thought followed two disparate paths as our scientific knowledge grew. Each path has lead to a different answer to this question of cooperation versus competition. Out of the left leaning Enlightenment thought, which emphasized equality and freedom, emerged modern Humanism. The term Humanism has different meanings when applied to different historical periods, but in every case it has to do with celebrating human abilities. Modern Humanists, both secular and religious, see great potential within all individuals, and thus believe that compassion for our fellow humans is both natural and necessary and should be cultivated and encouraged. Humanists believe that all individuals have the same basic set of needs, and believe the best social structure should not only meet the needs of as many of its members as possible, but also enable as many as possible to achieve their potential. Humanists believe that all people belong to a global society beyond their local community, within a single global ecosystem that should be protected. Therefore, humanists believe the answer to the quandary above is that the appropriate balance between cooperation and competition is far more toward the cooperation end of the spectrum.
These basic principals lead to all of the many things we support: equal human rights, equal opportunity, justice and rule of law, full participatory democracy, global citizenship, free and equal public education, social programs, progressive taxation, environmental protection, regulation of industry, workers rights, and any other progressive principal that you can think of.
___
So, think twice before claiming we are the party of the Enlightenment, for the right can make the exact same claim and be just as accurate. In fact, they may be even more accurate in their claim, since they have maintained the Enlightenment’s bigoted ideas in spite of our current scientific knowledge.
actually had a major fear of race war. He believed that if we ever freed the slaves, we should send them back to Africa. He consistently warned other plantation owners against freeing their slaves.
He was no doubt a racist, though he tried to be scientific in examining the differences between the races. He is actually a very good example of the way Enlightenment thinkers got close to being scientific, but couldn’t overcome their prejudices to actually be scientific.
This is long, but worth the read to see how Jefferson really felt about blacks:
…. It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expense of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race. – To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The first difference which strikes us is that of colour. – Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of Superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist has discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with more of it. They seem to require less sleep. A black after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present..- When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation.
We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch.
Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination.
He repeatedly compares blacks to animals and criticizes them of being incapable of higher thought like mathematics or poetry. For more of Jefferson’s thoughts about blacks click here.
It is nice to see someone focus on the social side of the issue.
One figure not mentioned here is Francis Galton, another proponent of a Social Darwinism. His ideas led to the establishment of the Eugenics Record Office in 1911. This office established intelligence tests given to immigrants – in a language that was not in their native tongue. The failure of these individuals to pass these tests “justified” their mistreatment in this country.
The Eugenics movement also maintained many perversions of Darwin’s theory that were ridiculous. The social impact on the poor, immigrants, criminals and mentally ill were astounding. The practice of sterilizing certain individuals in the name of Eugenics continued at least through the 30’s.
Francis Galton, unfortunately, was the cousin of Charles Darwin which gave unjustified support to Eugenics.
Not surprisingly, Eastern Europeans, who’s languages and cultures were least similar to American language and culture, tended to score the worst on the “intelligence” tests given to immigrants. That is where Polish jokes originated.
The counterpoint to Galton was Alfred Binet. Binet began his aptitude testing as a way of identifying students who needed extra help. This demonstrates that he believed that nurture played a larger role in developing an individual’s aptitudes than did nature. Binet was also not so arrogant to think he could combine tests scoring many aptitudes into a single number or “IQ”. He rated children based on how they compared to other students of the same age, so he was really measuring development and NOT intelligence.
Others took Binet’s testing methods and perverted them. Lewis Terman coined the term “intelligence quotient,” and Yerkes and Otis devised the tests the Army gave to recruits. All three men promoted Galton’s notion that IQ is a fixed measure of a person’s biological intelligence. Frighteningly, there are still many who think that spending resources on the inner cities and the poor is a waste of money because minorities and the poor are biological inferior. That was the gist of “The Bell Curve.”
Of course, this could then lead us to a discussion of what IQ tests really measure, if anything. There are so many talents and aptitudes which cannot be measured by a simple test. A deficiency in one area can be easily made up for by genius in another. This could then easily lead us into a discussion education reform, and why it is so stupid to cut the arts, crafts, and shop classes from public education.
and a powerful debut. You obviously spent a lot of time on this.