Give Them the Social Darwin Award

Americans love Darwinism!

Unfortunately, it's the wrong kind. Known as "Social Darwinism," it presents life as a struggle in which those who make it shouldn't let themselves be dragged down by those who don't. Survival of the fittest has become a political prescription. The President again sided with this prescription when he vetoed SCHIP.

The plot deepens when we look at exactly which Americans are Social Darwinists. About one-third of the nation believes that the rich owe nothing to the poor. [1] Ironically, these are generally the same people who doubt the theory of evolution, and who'd like to shield their children from it. Who in their right mind would base their political views on the distortion of a theory they consider invalid?

As a biologist, my problem is that Social Darwinism is giving real Darwinism a bad name. The first time this hit me was when the morning newspaper screamed "Why have we been left behind like animals?" quoting people stuck for days in the Louisiana Super Dome following hurricane Katrina.

Thousands of people with money and cars had fled New Orleans, leaving the sick, old, and poor to fend for themselves. The result was dead bodies floating in the water, being eaten by alligators. This was survival-of-the-fittest writ large, but the headline struck me as misleading, not because there was nothing to complain about, but because not all animals necessarily leave each other behind.

Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing. This applies most definitely to pack hunters, such as wolves or killer whales, but also to our closest relatives, the primates. In a study in Taï National Park, in Ivory Coast, chimpanzees took care of group mates wounded by leopards, licking away their blood, carefully removing dirt, and waving away flies that came near the wounds. They protected injured companions, and traveled slowly if these couldn't keep up. All of this makes perfect sense given that chimpanzees live in groups for a reason, the same way wolves and humans are group-animals for a reason. If man is wolf to man, he is so in every sense, not just the negative one.

The trick to understanding this is to distinguish between the process of evolution - which is based on elimination, hence harsh and merciless - and its products, which include tendencies that evolved to maintain group life. Survival requires a cohesive and cooperative group. As a species, we evolved for a complex give-and-take, not take, take, take.

The reason Herbert Spencer, who in the 19th Century gave us Social Darwinism, had to emphasize that there was no reason for the "fit" to worry about the "unfit," or why Ayn Rand had to write one-thousand page novels to advocate unmitigated self-gratification, is precisely because these attitudes don't come naturally to our species. Nature has pre-programmed us to pay attention to and care about others. Thus while we don't need to be told to breathe or love our children, we do require quite a bit of indoctrination to achieve social indifference.

Darwin himself wasn't happy at all being drawn into the political fray by Spencer's theories. In 1860, he complained about it in a letter to Charles Lyell, an influential geologist:

"I have received in a Manchester Newspaper a rather good squib, showing that I have proved "might is right," & therefore that Napoleon is right & every cheating Tradesman is also right."

Since the Conservatives in this country question evolutionary theory while at the same time driving health care into the ground by sticking to Social Darwinist policies [2], there's no more suitable award for them than the Social Darwin award, which is to be given to those who stupidly harm their own survival by neglecting the common good.

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[1] From the Pew Research Center about Americans: "... two-thirds (66%) say it is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can't care for themselves."

[2] Conservatives speak with disgust of "socialized medicine," as if privatized health care is such a success story. When I get seriously sick, I want to be close to a European hospital, where they simply give you the care you need, not an American hospital, where you need to negotiate what your insurance covers. And that's for those who have insurance. The US pays more for health care per capita than any other nation, yet doesn't even belong to the top twenty-five nations anymore in terms of quality of care or the most critical health measure: life expectancy.

Comments

[xenubarb]

Studies have shown that, when large groups of people are forced into proximity, like at a large company, they bind up into cliques, or tribes of roughly 50 members at maximum.

Within a tribe, everyone knows everybody else, and caring/sharing with the group is driven in part by knowledge of the person in need, and empathy for their condition.

Comes now the stress related to millions of people breeding billions more. And those people are "them."

"They" might be east coasters who've moved to California to clog up our streets and highways, mess up our beaches and parks, and take up space locals feel entitled to.

"They" can be Katrina victims, illegal immigrants, or people "not from around here."
And, as more and more people come into the world, in their faceless, teeming hordes, it becomes harder to empathize.

Our leaders are so very insulated from the real world of lower income people, they have no empathy or drive to help them with their children's health care and other necessities of life.

Q: Which President was astonished by the miracle of bar codes when he did a promotional appearance at a local store?

It sounds like the Social Darwinists are also of the same set that doesn't believe in evolution. The same conservatives who thump the bible regularly, favor the death penalty and oppose abortion and birth control.

Are they only looking as far ahead as the fictitious Rapture which will whisk them all away? They sure aren't planning for any kind of decent future for our descendants. It will be a world of overcrowding and dwindling resources.

When things got bad for the Inuit, they put their old folks on ice floes and sent them out to die on the ocean. In a microcosm, this reflects what might happen when water and food become scarce. Decisions are made as to who might best benefit from the resources available.

Imposing Social Darwinism on a population exhorted to breed, breed, breed makes little sense. And little sense is exactly what we've repeatedly seen from this administration.

[eddiestardust]

Frans,

I think you are correct in wanting to be near a European hospital rather than an American one.

Last December, I was hospitalized for almost a day for a chest pain...

It wasn't a heart attack!

Now, they did everything they could for me in regards to a heart attack ...

But they did not treat me for my Asthma at all.

I have now vowed that I will never go to another hospital again!

The bill for this treatment...the value of it I should say was more than $4,000.

Thankfully, it cost me less than $150.

But without my Blue Cross...I could not have gotten into a hospital at all.

Of course, that's not mentioning the fact that my insurance premium went from more than $200 to $450 also...

I'm getting just more than a bit tired of these
Republican "Holier than thou" Conservatives...

I think they all need very badly, to spend a
week in a poor person's shoes!

[woodchips]

Conservatives who shout down any discussion about government-funded health care, keep repeating that we can't possibly afford it. News flash: We're already paying for it in a number of ways.

About 2/3 of all heath care consumers are either on government funded programs (VA, Medicare, or state programs), or uninsured. The cost of services to these groups are either not paid or paid at below-cost reimbursement rates. Those of us who have private insurance are paying hugely inflated costs to cover those patients as well as the cost of maintaining an incredibly complex administrative and billing infrastructure for each hospital and medical practice.

Insurance premiums have increased beyond most working families' ability to pay (Anyone else noticed this?) to cover rapidly increasing service costs and, of course, the insurance companies' operational costs and profits...and let's not forget the many millions of dollars that the healthcare industry spends on campaign contributions and lobbying activities to maintain the status quo.

Between what we already pay in premiums, co-pays, deductables and taxes for current government programs, we could probably fund universal health care and SAVE money.

It seems simple enough: Removing the administrative waste and insurance profits from the system should get the cost of services back in line with reality, and a much higher percentage of our health care dollars would be directed to (OMG!) providing health care. The big question is, what do we do with all those unemployed insurance workers?

[LightningJoe]

Thanks for addressing this issue. "Social Darwinism" has vanishingly little to do with Darwin or the theory of evolution. I've noticed this irony myself, though it seems utterly wasted on those who cite the supposed scientific basis for their selfishness. That they consider themselves "above the herd" is perhaps the best sign of a social maladaptation. A social disease, as it were. As you point out, it takes a lot of backfilling to justify such a position.

Humans were social animals before we had any brains to brag about, and long before we had any culture worth the term. We worked together gathering, finding shelter, and later hunting. Not to mention using the resources these activities brought in. In all of these activities, the group benefits much more from cooperation than from competition between members. We've been selected for cooperation, not competition among ourselves. The key distinction, and perhaps one point of confusion, is that cooperation among ourselves makes us better competitors for resources AGAINST OTHER SPECIES.

This principle is not limited to humans or primates. Most species incorporate some level of cooperation, if only through shared danger calls to notify of predators. Territorial species do not usually fight for their territories, but make and observe boundary markings. This allows sharing of resources at large with little attrition due to competition. When fights do occur between predators, they are usually ceremonial in nature, leaving both parties fit to continue making a living, but redefining their respective territories. This in itself is a form of evolved cooperation.

The best size for cooperative human communities is the tribe. At this scale, each knows each by name and habit. Cooperation in most activities is the normal mode. Slackers are known and made to do their share, and the impulse to share (and be valued and respected thereby) handily counters the impulse to selfishness (note that selfishness is indeed a tribal virtue when it is group-selfishness).

At larger scales, slackers are not regularly disciplined, and fellow-feeling is lost in anomie, which itself becomes an insecurity that can lead to acquisitive tendencies.

[Absintheforall]

After agonizing over the health care debacle, I now believe that all children(and those with special needs) should have free health care.

[ggdwill]

While your column's fascinating description of the cooperative nature of animal behavior is certainly an excellent proof that socialism is a behavior better suited for pack animals, it doesn't support your conclusion that humans should mimic them; much less indict Social Darwinism.

Yes, homo sapiens, being members of the same species can and should benefit one another in their interactions for the same reason that animals are more successful than those hunting in packs than alone. How exactly, then, do welfare recipients benefit the hunt? How does congregating in a stadium demanding to be rescued from a flood contribute to the treasury? Would a pack of wolves allow the toothless and frightened among them to tag along on the hunt? It follows then that if reason is man's tool of survival, why should people who possess no legitimate reason for their suffering be entitled to the assistance of those who don't suffer?

It's only in a capitalist (or, if you like, a Social Darwinist) society that give and take is truly possible. Mercantilism, which is the economic premise that your column takes for granted, says that this is impossible. It says that unequal exchange involves the use of force; a winner and a loser; and is morally wrong. Thus, it's morality's job to declare that the "loser" should be compensated and to proceed to guilt or compel the "winner" in to compliance.

Capitalism, on the other hand, says that a true give and take really means a "take and take" is taking place. It means that both parties profit, maybe some more and maybe some less, but both come away with more than what they had before.

Men aren't animals and shouldn't behave like them. They are responsible for their own lives because they are responsible for their own minds. No one can think for anyone else, and if some men can think and produce better than others, they should not be made to pay for it through the purveyance of the perversely false idea that the weaknesses, and not the (even inferior) strengths, of others is their true asset.

[Frans de Waal - Huffpost Blogger]

You mean to say that those who can’t keep up are welcome to perish? Hence, you feel no basic solidarity, see no reason to involve everyone as much as possible in society’s success, have no sympathy for those who were born poor and stayed poor? Why not also discard those who get sick and old? Why not just limit society to those who are healthy and successful?

Two comments:

-- “Would a pack of wolves allow the toothless and frightened among them to tag along on the hunt?”
Not that wolves are always nice to each other, but sometimes handicapped and old members stay near the den and are fed by a returning hunting party.

-- “They [men] are responsible for their own lives because they are responsible for their own minds.”
Our brain is a product of evolution and so whether you like it or not we have much less control over our impulses, tendencies, and cognitive functions than generations of philosophers have tried to tell us with their “blank slate” idea.

[ggdwill]

Yes, they're welcome to perish. "Society" does not experience success, individuals do. And please don't conflate a lack of concern or sympathy with an active desire to harm. It's sloppy and dangerous wording.

Moving on, society shouldn't be limited to any type of person. Individuals, strong or weak, have rights. Weak people should not be forced to give up their lives for the sake of a bunch of Ubermen anymore than should strong people be forced to give up their talents for the sake of a bunch of laymen. Every individual hasthe right to the products of his efforts, prolific or meager, or the products of the efforts of others provided that they CHOOSE to give them to him.

As far as what wolves do, I really couldn't care less. Like I said, yes, pack animals sacrifice their own well-being because of some "altrusitic instinct", but men, qua men, do not. Altruism and socialism are anathema to human nature. Men can either choose to indulge altruistic emotions and help out the less fit out of a sense of duty (or biological necessity) or they can chose not to. This does not mean that personal charity towards infirmed loved ones and the like is not it's own form of trade - with the payment being the appropriate emotional reward derived from your loved one's continued presence.

But, in a free (ie: non-socialist) society, what do personal choices like these have to do with government and economics?

As far as whatever is going on in our minds and what caused it, how is that relevant? Unless you deny that amongst all of those impulses and tendencies there is an element of volition, the fact remains that people ultimately choose what to think and by and large the course of their lives.

[jst418]

Interesting that Hitler and the Nazi party also believed in Social Darwinism. Perhaps accusing the Republicans of Fascism isn't far off the mark?

[Zanti]

I hope not, since I've been doing it for the past decade, at least....

[Bateman]

Nazi biopolitics are far removed from laissez-faire, which is the kind of social Darwinism that you and de Waal are referring to. The Third Reich was a plunder state whose largess was increasingly funded by stealing the resources of Jews and later, Slavs. Spending on social programs, including infrastructure, welfare, and public health, was increased - for members of the group that mattered, ethnic Germans, while members of outgroup ethnicities were robbed, enslaved, and murdered. Interventionist eugenic euthanasia (rather than the neglect of laissez-faire) of ethnic German defectives was promoted as enhancing the overall health of the population. Nazi biology textbooks specifically cited eusocial insects as the correct model for German society and emphasized self-sacrifice in service to the group. Public service and the subsuming of the individual into the group will was encouraged through youth and labor leagues. Nazi intellectuals unfavorably contrasted England, a collection of rootless shopkeepers, with the holistic ethnic state.

One does not have to like - or choose between - either laissez-faire or fascist biopolitics. But they are quite different.

(Incidentally, Herbert Spencer was an anti-imperialist, and his views were embraced - and distorted - by everyone from robber baron apologists to revolutionary socialists.)

[Bateman]

Your essay is problematic for a number of reasons, but I'll narrow my critique to just a couple of them.

First, you are promoting the naturalistic fallacy as much as the crudest social Darwinist.

Second, your characterization of nonhuman social behavior, including social carnivores, is downright Pollyannish. Group-oriented behaviors go hand in hand not only with altruism and cooperation but also with the pitiless elimination of defective and nonconformist members, opportunistic infanticide, lethal struggles for dominance and succession, rigid social hierarchies, and extermination of rival groups. Shall we endorse all of those as well? Of course not.

These phenomena just provide all the more reason to be wary of the naturalistic fallacy. Think of the dismal record of modern political systems that purported to be organic unities - often invoking their naturalistic foundation - as opposed to aggregates of atomistic individuals.

No, I am not opposed on principle to government funding in healthcare and other social services. I'm opposed to your mode of argumentation.

Yes, natural selection has often produced cooperation and altruism. ("Selfish" genes can give rise to altruistic individuals.) But caring and callousness are, unfortunately, not mutually exclusive in neither nature nor human society. In addition, selfishness and cooperation can coexist at all levels of biological organization, even within highly integrated entities (social groups, organisms, genomes). So let's dispense with the evolutionary ecology morality tales.

[Frans de Waal - Huffpost Blogger]

The idea that nature is entirely dog-eat-dog is incorrect. I am not saying that if chimpanzees or dolphins occasionally help each other, this means that we should do so too, but just pointing out that such examples are plentiful. The book of nature is like the Bible: one can read into it what one wants, from tolerance to intolerance, and from altruism to greed. The fact remains, however, that the human species did not evolve for the sort of callous indifference that Social Darwinists would like us to display.

[Zanti]

"First, you are promoting the naturalistic fallacy as much as the crudest social Darwinist."

I think you make a good point. I would have enjoyed this much more if it didn't function as an ad for the standard, human-bashing, dawkins model of morality. In fact, I'm so used to the point of view expressed here that I didn't even notice it until you pointed it out!

When people feel they're being manipulated, they respond by rejecting the entire argument, good points and bad together. Propaganda is thus counterproductive.

[LightningJoe]

And what is wrong with the part you quoted, pray tell? The first part isn't an argument, just a broadening of definitions that need broadening. The only claim to fact is that humans "did not evolve for the sort of callous indifference that Social Darwinists would like us to display."

Is that what you question? And what exactly do you think is "human-bashing" about that? I'll grant you it's social-dar­winist-bas­hing, but I think he backs up the case for that very well indeed; and he's not alone. On the contrary, it's the social darwinists who are engaged in bashing humans, by disclaiming any higher standards for our species than kill-to-eat.

Humans are much more than their appetites; much more than the sum of their possessions; much more even than great warriors. It's a pity that so many these days limit life to purely material dimensions. That view, while a concomitant of our technologic society, leads to a tunnel vision in which every last item and thought must have a set measure and price, and be named, and be "efficient," and "good for something" in a trade/monetary sense.

But the end of cheap energy will solve that - if our cultures live through the transition. When we have to start living closer to the Earth, life will slow to a more "human" pace, and the current frenetic pricing and labeling of every physical and mental "commodity" will start to seem pretty silly.

[oldpotsmuggler]

The political process has failed. Typically politics has a moderating feature that eventually causes office holders to back off of their excesses. At some point the numbers just sink in, and beaviors get corrected, even if only slightly.

For the current bunch, they seem to have a type of immunity to popular opinion that is unlike anything I've ever experienced. As the numbers get worse, their excesses multiply. Ot at least so it seems to me.

[LightningJoe]

It is indeed as you say. It's because what's driving them is a religion, not politics in any sense we've hitherto seen.

A politician worthy of the term keeps his or her eye on the people. When the people get nervous, a politician gets nervous.

But the current bunch in the Capitol do not represent the people, and they know it. They just used our political process to put themselves in power. They have no instinct to satisfy the public. They are out for their own agenda, which is, as Tom Delay so aptly put it, to make government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub.

You all thought that was a figure of speech, didn't you?

The folks in the White House are crusaders; jihadists. They are free market fundamentalists in the Chicago School mold, who want very simply to destroy all government oversight over the market, period. No taxes, no hiring restrictions, no worker protections, no wage standards, or firing restrictions, no environmental regulations, no friking endangered species restrictions, no merger limitations, no lawsuits by private parties, by Dog no unions and no penalties for busting such.

The raving Bushites have a holy calling. They know we'll fight it if/when we take it seriously, so their main strategy is to make sure we don't. By lying about literally everything, and never slowing the rape. By hiding all information, tooth and nail. By never stopping. Always vetoing. Never stopping.

We are used to dealing with leaders who care what we think; so we're flummoxed that we can't seem to make an impression on Saint George.

[GenericBlogger]

oldpotsmuggler wrote "For the current bunch, they seem to have a type of immunity to popular opinion that is unlike anything I've ever experienced. As the numbers get worse, their excesses multiply. Or at least so it seems to me."

I concur.

The neocon movement established roots in the 50s and grew since then. It flourished with Goldwater's influence and more so during Reagan's presidency.

More and more people came under the illusion that they can be wealthy in their own right if they hold on to their money. This means supporting a smaller government, paying less taxes and avoiding social programs. This was music to the ears of anyone who wanted more money however small. Hence, more jumped on the Republican bandwagon, lambasted welfare, stigmatized liberals and without realizing it, drifted towards a libertarian society while ignoring the fact that someday, they themselves will need help provided by some government social program. One of their mottos was "God helps those who help themselves". This was interpreted as permission to live a selfish life while ignoring other Biblical teachings on helping others.

The calls for greater independence continue in Dubya's tenure in attempts to privatize Social Security and thwart universal health care.

After years of Republican efforts to get the government out of our lives, after years of cutting back social programs and shifting more financial responsibility to the people, why do people still pay the same amount of taxes or more? Where is the payback? Where are the taxes going to?

Having said that, it's not just the political process that failed, it's the masses who jumped on the Republican wagon, swallowed the conservative rhetoric hook line and sinker and finding there is little or no payoff unless they are in the higher income brackets. The masses who supported the neocon beliefs are starting to realize there isn't enough room for everyone and many are left behind. Fuel is added to the fire by neocon politicians slowly responding to the growing number of people left behind.

[GenericBlogger]

oldpotsmuggler wrote "For the current bunch, they seem to have a type of immunity to popular opinion that is unlike anything I've ever experienced. As the numbers get worse, their excesses multiply. Or at least so it seems to me."

I concur.

The neocon movement established roots in the 50s and grew since then. It flourished with Goldwater's influence and more so during Reagan's presidency.

More and more people came under the illusion that they can be wealthy in their own right if they hold on to their money. This means supporting a smaller government, paying less taxes and avoiding social programs. This was music to the ears of anyone who wanted more money however small. Hence, more jumped on the Republican bandwagon, lambasted welfare, stigmatized liberals and without realizing it, drifted towards a libertarian society while ignoring the fact that someday, they themselves will need help provided by some government social program. One of their mottos was "God helps those who help themselves". This was interpreted as permission to live a selfish life while ignoring other Biblical teachings on helping others. Some limited helping others to helping other Christians.

The calls for greater independence continue in Dubya's tenure in attempts to privatize Social Security and thwart universal health care.

After years of Republican efforts to get the government out of our lives, after years of cutting back social programs and shifting more financial responsibility to the people, why do people still pay the same amount of taxes or more? Where is the payback? Where are the taxes going to?

Having said that, it's not just the political process that failed, it's the masses who jumped on the Republican wagon, swallowed the conservative rhetoric hook line and sinker and finding there is little or no payoff unless they are in the higher income brackets. The masses who supported the neocon beliefs are starting to realize there isn't enough room for everyone and many are left behind, children and adults. Fuel is added to the fire by neocon politicians slowly responding to the growing number of people left behind.

[RobertPaul]

If we were "meant" to be "Loners," then how would we, as a species, survive?

Humanity requires the cooperation of man and woman to produce the next generation of humans.

Once the offspring are born, they must be carefully attended for long periods of time. Unlike fish or some animals, we don't have the ability to fend for ourselves or to feed ourselves until a significant period of time has passed.

During this time period, if we are not cared for by "parents," we will die and eventually the species will cease to exist.

It becomes clear then that survival of the "fittest" really means the fittest "Grouping."

This is how we define civilization and our history has shown that those who don't care for the "weak" (read: less experienced) don't survive.

Denying health care to people - especially the young - is therefore a counter-ev­olutionary act that can't be tolerated.

Even Bush should be able to figure this out!

[LittleBrother]

"If they had like to die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

-- E. Scrooge, father of modern Republican fiscal responsibility

[Aunt Shecky]

The prime proponent of so-called "Social Darwinism" was Pres. Reagan, but it seems to me that the good ol "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" philosophy has little to do with enlightened government. This seems to be
another cognitive disconnect for some members of the G.O.P. who say that they disdain the concept of "evolution" yet whose policies follow Social Darwinism. But what a misreading of Darwin's theory! It's like what the educational system has done to the writings
of John Dewey.
In my opinion, it's like what G.K. Chesterton said about Christianity: "It is not that it's been tried and failed; it has been found difficult and never been tried." So it is with evolution; as a species we humans have definitely progressed, physically and in some ways intellectually, but as far as compassion
and love for our fellow creatures, we've been going in the wrong direction.