Social Darwinism And The Reaction To Growing Empires

Social Darwinism is a theory that individuals, peoples, and groups are subject to darwinian laws of natural selection. Another way to describe social darwinism is survival of the fittest. The strongest and the smartest will survive. It is now largely discredited, it was advocated in the late 19th and early 20th century by Herbert Spencer and others. It was used to justify political conservation, imperialism, to discourage intervention and reform and racism. This theory was used to support the laissez faire capitalism and political conservatism.

In the essay, “The Common Life” by Scott Russell Sanders, Sanders studies the connection between the individual and society. However, this leads to the question, what is the relationship between the individual and society? Individuals and societies may be in opposition but this helps to develop both the individual and society. The decisions that an individual makes reflects on how society views him/her. The overlook of the community can be reverted back to the individual within the society. Society and individuals are a package deal.

Social Darwinism is based off of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. He uses the concept of survival of the fittest. This was used to justify class distinctions and to explain the reason for poverty. Modern science declared that the failure to advance in society was due to the lack of self reliance and determination. They acted down on people who needed government aid. Even during the depression people still believed the notion that the poor were responsible for their fate. The idea of natural superiority was around since the Civil War. So much so, we thought it was okay to own human beings.

Social Darwinism began in the late 19th century and early 20th century during the time of The Gilded Age and earlier. Herbert Spencer was a 19th century philosopher and he promoted the idea of Social Darwinism. It basically followed the principle that only the strong would survive and prosper. While this period the technology and economy and government of the

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:

This controversy is connected to sociology in many ways. As stated in the PowerPoint, society is a social organization which is made possible

Social Darwinism stems from a misapplication of Darwin 's theory of evolution. In 1859 Charles Darwin published On The Origin of Species, which describes the mechanism for changes in the traits of a population over time. This mechanism, called natural selection, favors the survival, and hence the reproduction, of those

Social Darwinism is a theory that competition among all individuals, groups, nations or ideas drives social evolution in human societies. The term draws upon Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, where competition between individual organisms drives biological evolutionary change through the survival of the fittest. 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

In the 1870s, the English sociologist Herbert Spencer applied Charles Darwin's theories of biological evolution to human behavior and institutions. Spencer used the idea of survival of the fittest in biology and theorized human society had evolved the same way (Cooper 15). Social Darwinism, as Spencer's theory is called, pits everyone against each other to survive in the world where humans are soldiers in a war for survival. If a person is poor, it is their fault and no one should help that person rise above the poverty status. If a person is rich, they are worthy of the position based on their actions, even if morally wrong. So if one is poor, the person will be weeded out of society while the rich survive.

Social Darwinism is an ideology of society that seeks to apply biological concepts of the laws of evolution by natural selection of evolutionary theory to sociology and politics, often with the assumption that conflict between groups in society leads to social progress as superior groups outcompete inferior ones. How we got to the point of coining the modern term of “Social Darwinism” we would have to turn to the famous man himself, Charles Darwin.

Interaction with the society helps human beings to develop their worldview over a subject (Wilmer 28). Without a society, it will be difficult to differentiate a human being from other animals. Therefore, it is right to say that a man is humanized by society. The basic society where a man belongs is known as a family. It is in the family that a man learns the necessary feature of becoming a member of the whole society. As the man continues to live in the social environment, he will get to learn values, moral behaviors and responsibility. An individual’s intellectual characteristics are a clear imprint of their society (Wilmer 102). Therefore, the level of development of a society is determines the level of individual development in that society and vice versa.

On the other hand, society is defined as the means by which groups of people organize to some social structure, and was usually defined in terms of a well-defined geographical region by past scholars. Both Wolf (1982:8) and Kessing and Strathern (1998:22), define society as groups of people or communities that are connected by similar social, economic, political or ideological ties. These scholars state that societies are results of systems of interactions between people, known as social relationships. These interconnected individuals who interact recurrently form social groups, and then larger communities known as social systems. Society is then comprised of various social institutions such as family, education and politics that satisfy basic human needs. Altogether, these individual components give society its social structure. However, Wolf (1982:6) remarks that one must be careful not to describe societies as discrete, isolated entities, such as the East or West, as they are the product of a “temporarily and spatially changing and changeable set of relationships, or relationships among sets of relationships”.

Social Darwinism is defined as the application of the theory of biological evolution to human affairs. It was used to justify and clarify many notions of nationalism and imperialism. Science played a huge role in the coming about of this new discovery but in reality, the society shaped the science of what it was about. Charles Darwin was the root of new era and was profound to come up with the theory of evolution. His theory had become one the fundamental unifying principles of modern biology and led to questioning in regards to what was previously stated in the past.

Social Darwinism is a theory that was popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. It used Darwin’s concept of natural selection and put it towards the race of humans, saying that through evolution the strongest race will outlive the weaker ones.

Society is a platform that gives a shape to the people's livings, demands, aspirations, needs and all kinds of growths. When numerous people having diverse mindsets, aspirations and demands yet live together for a common cause is what we understand by the society. A society may either include people of