Social Darwinism

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[1]

Concept of Social Darwinism

Darwinism and Social Darwinism had the same name and few fundamental principles, though it was misapplied to support racial justification. Social Darwinism was developed based on the idea of Darwin in adaptation and natural selection. The belief was relatively popular in Europe, United Kingdom, and America from the 1880s until the 1940s[2].

Herbert Spencer. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.[3].

Herbert Spencer, the philosopher who labeled the idea of Social Darwinism, declared that several humans were superior to others due to their traits. The strongest and fittest human would survive in society, while the weakest and most unfit would go extinct. This idea influenced international politics, social development, and global economics as the statement led to the strongest nation's definition was filled with the selected and strongest human beings.

The idea evolved into oppression justification by the whites. Many whites were rich at the time, while a few races were considered poor, including the black people. Several white people believed that the black people were poor due to natural selection, where black people had weak traits and were considered unfit to survive. The idea of "the fittest must be survived" was eventually used as racial scientific support. Black children would inherit the poor and less intelligent traits from their parents and should not be saved by the government[4].

Political cartoon showing Uncle Sam lecturing a group of childlike caricatures depicting the people of Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The "more advanced students" of Texas, California and Alaska sit in the back of the classroom, while the African American student is forced to clean the windows, the Native American student is confined to a corner, and the Chinese student is halted outside the door. Art by Louis Dalrymple, Puck magazine, 1899. Image courtesy Library of Congress[5].

Spencer took an example from the case of Margaret, a gutter child in New York. He concluded that the government should not provide aid to her as when she became a mother, her children would inherit the traits of stupidity, prostitutes, and lunatics. Spencer ended his theory by proposing, "Was it kindness or cruelty which, generation after generation, enabled these to multiply and become an increasing curse to the society around them?"[6].

Black Inferiority as a Result of Natural Order

Nathaniel Shaler, the Dean of Harvard, stated that blacks were extinct due to their inferiority on natural selection in 1884[7]. Several scientists widely used the Darwin's theory of evolution to support scientific racism against many racial groups, excluding whites. For example, the whites were assumed to more superior in health compared to the blacks. In the 1800s and 1900s, many black people were in poor condition and easily affected by tuberculosis and venereal diseases. Thus, most of the white race were prohibited from marrying the black race as these people were afraid that the "inferior genes" would be inherited by their children. Furthermore, the lack of physical traits was generally correlated with selected races like the criminalistics tendencies, negligence, and intellectual impairment related to the black race. A smart or hardworking black person was considered as a temporary deviation. It was believed that these attributes could not be treated, and they would inherit these attributes to all their children. For that reason, many black men in the slave era were lynched to prevent the rape of a white woman by the black men, as the whites concluded that blacks wanted to have a better caste if they can have a family with whites.

Lewis Terman, a psychologist who developed the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale (IQ Test), established the intelligence testing method to support scientific racism[8]. The IQ test that was developed was based on eugenics as the basis of testing. The test was then used to exclude the blacks and justify racism. Based on the results, the whites were considered smarter and exploited to label selected races, such as the blacks were more inferior in intelligence.

Many scientists widely used bias techniques and methods to label blacks as poorer, less intelligent, and more inferior, so they could oppress the blacks in the past. Dr. Ulrich B. Phillips, a professor from the University of Michigan Pressman, declared that laziness traits were found within the black people[9]. He said that based on the data of cotton production pre and post-emancipation among black and white people. Based on his research, the Mississippi's cotton production by the blacks was declining while the cotton production of the Oklahoma and Texas by the whites was increasing after emancipation. He used this research to prove that black's laziness was a trait despite its prejudice research method as he neglected the land conditions where the land of Mississippi was overused. Moreover, a few scientists attributed blacks as less intelligent as lower suicide rates and low levels of insanity were found in many blacks compared to others. They assumed that this could occur as blacks could not use their brain effectively. However, when the suicide rates increased, they altered their assumption and considered the blacks were weak-minded. The scientific statements were made based on their prejudice by neglecting several parameters. If the result did not go as it wanted to be, they simply altered the outcome or did not publish it to the public.

Dr. Benjamin K. Hays, a medical doctor in Oxford in 1905, claimed that the Africans have reached their maximum potential and would not grow even further as they have not made any progress for the last three thousand years[10]. He presumed that the black man could only survive by maintaining their status quo as server of the masters. In the end, he said that the survival of black man could only be done as long as the masters would protect them, and the protection would only be obtained by serving masters as a gardener, laborer, or butler.

Hernstein and Murray believed that black's inferiority was due to the traits, and for that reason, saving black people would be worthless as the inferiority was already predetermined. The idea of social Darwinism was to be used as scientific support to halt the government assistance in education and expenses of the black people.

The Fall of Social Darwinism

The belief of Social Darwinism lost its reputation at the end of World War II. Its idea was highly related to the idea implemented by Adolf Hitler in Germany with his Nazi racial propaganda during World War II. Thus, the idea lost its fame in the United States. Besides, with the development of biology, technology, and sociology, Social Darwinism's fundamentals became illogical as physical attributes do not correlate with behavioral or mental characteristics. Not only that, many scientists these days would avoid the term of a race since there were so many variants of human groups, and generalization of human groups would not be possible scientifically[11].


References

  1. History.com Editors. Darwinism. August 21, 2019. history.com. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  2. South African History Online. Pseudo-scientific racism and Social Darwinism. August 2011. sahistory.org.za. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  3. Khan Academy Editors. 6773d9572a8e596f06283f32fd2696dc798fa6ed. 2016. khanacademy.org. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  4. History.com Editors. Darwinism. August 21, 2019. history.com. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  5. Khan Academy Editors. 6773d9572a8e596f06283f32fd2696dc798fa6ed. 2016. khanacademy.org. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  6. Recchiuti, John Louis. Social Darwinism in the Gilded Age. 2016. khanacademy.org. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  7. Pressman, Lindsay. How Evolution was used to Support Scientific Racism. 2017. digitalrepository.trincoll.edu. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  8. Pressman, Lindsay. How Evolution was used to Support Scientific Racism. 2017. digitalrepository.trincoll.edu. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  9. Pressman, Lindsay. How Evolution was used to Support Scientific Racism. 2017. digitalrepository.trincoll.edu. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  10. Documenting the American South. Summary. August 2010. docsouth.unc.edu. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  11. South African History Online. Pseudo-scientific racism and Social Darwinism. August 2011. sahistory.org.za. Retrieved March 28, 2021.