Social Darwinism

The social Darwinism is the idea according to which a particular aspect of the Théorie of the evolution or Théorie of the natural selection of Darwin would be applicable to the human populations.

Origin and development

Herbert Spencer, erudite contemporary of Charles Darwin and quite as popular, interprets this Theory by the “selection of most suited” ( Survival off the fittest ). The social Darwinism thus suggests that heredity (innate characters) would have a paramount role compared to education (acquired features). It is thus about an ideological system which sees in the civil fights, the social inequalities and the wars of conquest nothing less than the application to the mankind natural selection. It thus provides a biological explanation to the disparities observed between the companies on the allegedly single trajectory of the human history: the people less “adapted” to the fight for survival would have remained “fixed” at the primitive stage conceptualized by holding of the anthropological evolutionism. Darwin wrote one entitled book Origin of the species (with like subtitles: the Safeguarding of the races supported in the struggle for life ).

On the political plan, the social Darwinism was used scientifically to justify several political concepts related to the domination by an elite, of a mass considered to be “less suited”. Among those let us note the Colonialisme, the Eugénisme, the Fascisme and especially the Nazisme. Indeed, this Idéologie considers legitimate that the weakest “human races” and beings disappear and leave the place with the races and the beings best armed to survive (Ernst Haeckel).

Nowadays, the social Darwinism inspires still certain ideologies of Extrême right-hand side.

Social Darwinism applied to the nations

At the end of the 19th century, the social Darwinism was applied to the relationship between the nations. This movement especially developed in the Anglo-Saxon countries, and to a lesser extent in Russia. If this idea does not lead in general to quarrelsome attitudes, it is not the same in Germany where the confrontation between the “young” nations, like Germany, full with “virile” vitality, and the “old hand” nations, qualified by holding of this theory the “declining ones”, the France, is regarded as inevitable. This vision is to be replaced in the social context of the time.

Moreover, the “vitality” of a nation is measured almost exclusively with the ell of the Démographie: the more fertile one nation is, the more it is or will be strong. Thus, the Russia and the people Slaves in general made fear with many German leaders, like the chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg by his natural increase, making inevitable, according to them, a violent confrontation (media phobia of the Russian Road roller). At this stage, the social Darwinism meets the racial Nationalisme.

One could think that this vision of the relationship between the nations, dominant in Germany and Austria at the beginning of the 20th century, played a crucial role in the release of the First World War.

The importance of the social Darwinism in the release of the First World War must be relativized. This interpretation is indeed seriously contradicted by the work of Leon Schirmann which identified the real responsibilities in release for the first world war after having worked on the official files of the various countries belligerent (cf Mensonges and misinformation, August 1914, how one sells a war Leon Schirmann, Editions Italic, 2003). These responsibilities are before all much more political than scientific.

Elements related to the theory of the natural selection were incorporated by Shigetake Sugiura, one of the tutors of Hirohito, in its writings aiming at justifying the superiority of the Nipponese race and its right to dominate the the Far East. With the mythological elements suitable for the Shinto, the social Darwinism was thus used as backdrop with the invasion of China and the countries of Southeast Asia during the era Showa.

See too

Summary bibliography

  • Jean-Marc Bernardini, social Darwinism in France (1859-1918). Fascination and rejection of an ideology , Paris, Editions of CNRS, 1997
  • J. Novicow, Critic of the social Darwinism , 1910, ED. Felix Alcan
  • Andre Pichot, the pure Company. Of Darwin with Hitler , 2000, Champs Flammarion ISBN 2080800310
  • '' Hérodote '' devotes a small article to the social Darwinism

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