Hi Sid,

First off, you’re correct in your understanding: Darwinists of today (known more formally as evolutionary biologists) never use the term social Darwinism nor apply social Darwinist ideas to people (though I am sure someone can locate a rogue biologist who does); most of them regard the term as illegitimate since human culture–which includes political action–has (and had even in Darwin’s day) replaced nature as the prime force upon human survival.

Those who coined the term in the 19th century (Darwin didn’t use it) were social progressives attempting to show how every natural law in the universe leads to progress. It seemed at the time that life was indeed looking up for many folks, some more than others. Like elites in other times and places, those atop the Victorian social order placed themselves at the top of the ‘natural’ order of things, though Darwin himself (in The Descent Of Man, a follow-up to On the Origin of Species) cautioned against what his cousin Francis Galton approvingly (and what we today disparagingly) would term eugenics:

…if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

Many who still do use the term social Darwinism today are the ultra-rich (and their apologists) who want to justify positions of privilege, just as robber baron capitalists in the late 1800′s justified cutthroat business dealings. Ironically, proponents of social Darwinist mythology (and its ‘Survival of the Fittest’ myth) include a contingent of fundamentalist Christians who firmly believe in God and a divine plan, all the while calling for removal of evolution in school curricula (and, in a curious non sequitur, lower taxes for the rich).

Myths in the modern world are tools we humans have at our disposal to convince others that certain ideas are ‘true’. Those in positions of wealth and influence have used the social Darwinism myth in order to preserve their positions of privilege. They need only convince their fellow humans (or at least some of them) to accept a myth as valid. Social Darwinism is, primarily, a story about why the losers of cultural and political battles ought to give up fighting and accept the status quo as not only natural, expected, or preordained, but even desirable.

Members of the privileged class don’t have to prove their fitness in accordance with the theory, since, as far as they are concerned, it’s a self-evident truth. It doesn’t matter if they truly believe in the myth. Though, personally, I suspect most of them do. It’s only important to get the culture at large (or at the very least those who might work for change) to accept the myth.

If you can get your opponents to accept their status as inferior (or beaten), then you have won the war without fighting. The social Darwinist myth holds that everyone is (and was destined to be) in their ‘proper’ (social) place and that things could not have turned out differently, which implies that no change in position, influence (i.e., voice in society or government), or wealth is needed, nor is any desirable since intentional change ‘violates’ the ‘natural’ order’ of things.

The mythology of social Darwinism ignores or outright denies a number of facts:

1) Survival is not of the fittest (at least not often) but merely the luckiest of the least unfit. Mediocrity can thrive as long as it is does not possess a trait that actively hurts its chances of survival, and even the not-so-fit can survive as long as it is lucky; selection works in the negative: culling the unfit. Selection has no mechanism to eliminate all competition to the most fit. Survival only proves luck or lack of bad genes or traits.

2) As the environment changes, those that were most fit can quickly become trapped by their fitness to the old conditions, unable to adapt fast enough to the new ones. In other words, fitness is not a static condition.

3) Even if the social Darwinist myth were true, we humans needn’t accept its outcomes. At least in the modern world, we have enough resources to create a more equitable distribution than that made by chance.

4) There is no divine plan ordaining the lucky few as the ‘fittest’. Biologists and geneticists have demonstrated (with support of computer models) that, given enough time and small changes, no plan is necessary. (See Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett for more detail.)

5) In our human world, many of the pressures on survival or success are human-made and therefore open to change by human beings. Even were there a divine plan, if we humans have been granted free will, God couldn’t guarantee that pivotal historical figures would come to the ‘right’ conclusions. Otherwise, there is no free will at all. So this further puts the onus upon all of us to act fairly towards each other instead of pushing unsupportable social fictions about the fitness of some individual or group.

Thus, I think one can reasonably argue that social Darwinism, in its simplest, crudest form is mythology since it explains nothing real or active in the present day. It is an unsupportable story (a social lie) used to justify immoral actions or conditions. Its moral lesson is that those with little ought to accept their proper place.

Well, I hope this is food for thought or discussion. Feel free to comment as you wish.

It is cool to hear that your group is similar in size and dynamic to ours. I wish you all well in your endeavors from all of us at Socrates Cafe Seattle to you in Okemos Michigan.

Best Regards,

Stu Levy, Co-facilitator SCS