The brain-rot of Social Darwinism

[applegrove]

The brain-rot of Social Darwinism.
21 May 2024

Written By Joan Westenberg

"SNIP............

But we have to resist this way of thinking. A society that lets its most vulnerable citizens sink into despair rationalizes exploitation and applauds selfishness is not a healthy society. It's a brittle one ripe for fracturing. The NSDAP (Nazi Socialist German Workers' Party) relied upon the same reprehensible philosophy to justify its rise to populist power.

When we lift up the struggling, everybody benefits. When we extend opportunity widely, the whole world gets smarter and better. When we cultivate empathy and a sense of shared humanity, we all lead richer lives.

Social Darwinism is a rot that will only erode our humanity and, with it, our world.

Don't rationalize selfishness with pseudoscience. Dare to imagine a world where we measure success not by how much we accumulate for ourselves but by how much we help others live lives of dignity and fulfilment.

..........SNIP"

[Straw Man]

1. The bottom line, IMO, is that ...

.... Social Darwinism inevitably yields to actual Darwinism, a.k.a. Social Marxism: If you squeeze the working class hard enough, eventually they will storm the castle. Once they realize that the social contract offers them nothing but misery -- and that they vastly outnumber you -- you'll be taken out and shot.

[applegrove]

2. They'll be patroling the internet and sabotaging

the life and livelihood of anyone who is not MAGA. They will have drones. They don't need people. Your scenario does not work anymore.

[Straw Man]

3. They don't need people?

I beg to differ. American capitalism may no longer have much need for workers, but it still needs consumers. Unless MAGA wants to try a takeover of the entire world -- with virtually no chance of success -- they still need Americans to shell out cash for whatever crap they're purveying.

And let's not forget that we have a country that was conceived in revolution, albeit not a proletarian revolution. Assuming that they do succeed in bringing actual fascism to the American body politic -- which is a very shaky assumption -- I would give it at most a generation before violent revolution ensues.

[applegrove]

4. But they will have an army of drones then.

[Straw Man]

5. So?

Small drones are relatively cheap and can be weaponized for guerrilla warfare. Just ask the Ukrainians.

[applegrove]

6. You are more optimistic than I. If they win they will monopolize

all. There will not be starlink for the public. Especially when a war breaks out.

I'm making myself so depressed.

[jaxexpat]

7. Need a lift, buddy?

All revolution begins in the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised. They're called, initially, cry-babies and blowhards. Coal miners didn't keep canaries around for their songs, but they were desperately attentive to occasions of canary mortality. The metric of people power is in their choice. Currently, one may choose nonparticipation, a deceptively powerful option. When that choice is removed, finally then, the pushback commences. They will never win. Hell, if there were enough prison space, there'd be no homelessness.

[applegrove]

8. I don't understand what you are saying. I'm tired I guess.

[jaxexpat]

9. Well, no rest for the weary or, coincidentally, the wicked.

Personally, I prefer retirement.

[wnylib]

13. I would not give it a generation.

If Trump gets into the WH, the agenda that he pushes will get immediate opposition because the 2025 Project is so severe.

Protests will turn into riots as Trump's thugs crack down on protesters. The civil war that MAGAs have been pushing for so long will happen.

[nuxvomica]

10. Social Darwinism was at the heart of the Scopes Trial

As with any cause célèbre, there were many issues swirling around the "monkey trial" at the time but thanks to a wonderful play we tend to think of it as simply fundamentalism vs. science and academic freedom. William Jennings Bryan was not a fundamentalist and actually a Progressive but he opposed Darwinism because it was co-opted by the moneyed interests of the day to justify Social Darwinism.

[applegrove]

11. Did not know thay.

[mopinko]

12. it's a load of bunk. the actual history of humans is the triumph of cooperation over conflict.

even b4 humans, apes lived in tribes. we started out as tribes. tho some fought, most cooperated w/in group, at the least.

we’re a violent species cuz we descended from chimps not gorillas. and chimps evolved cuz they made war and were brutal about it. they took over other troop’s territory. they tear the arms off their opponents, and beat them to death w them.
but advances were all based on cooperation, including cooperating in hunting and defense.

[applegrove]

14. Actually we are more like bonobos culturally.

At least paleo people were egalitarian.