Social Darwinism Research Articles

How can you help us, Mr Darwin? Social Darwinism in the history of Chinese international thought

Abstract Social Darwinism was a pathbreaker in the history of Chinese international thought. In this study, we explore the hitherto sparsely discussed process of the reception of social Darwinism in China, which led to a fundamental transformation in Chinese thinking about the international order and the position of China vis-à-vis Western powers. Drawing on the work of three leaders of that intellectual transformation – Yan Fu, Kang Youwei, and Liang Qichao – we analyse issues such as the struggle for existence and survival, national and racial competition, and statism. We demonstrate how the three aforementioned thinkers modified the original Darwinist thought, enriching it with voluntarism and radical collectivism, all in order for the emerging set of ideas to suit China’s historically determined needs. Overall, our analysis contributes to both the history of International Relations thought in China and the broader debate on the globalisation of IR theory and IR knowledge production.

After Trickle Down, Kicking Down: On Jordan Peterson, Naturalizing Inequality, and Neofascist Indirect Apologetics

This paper argues that Jordan Peterson’s enthusiastic reception, including on the neofascist Right, reflects how his discourse functions as a form of indirect capitalist apologetics, which no longer obviates how the sociopolitical system produces massive inequalities, but sanctifies inequalities as natural and eternal. Part 1 frames the contention of the paper, addressing methodological issues. Part 2 establishes the understanding of indirect apologetics, drawn from Gyorgy Lukács’ account of fascist ideology as involving the following three irrationalist functions: first, ontologizing and relativizing peoples’ material, socioeconomic concerns; second, positioning the in-group as privileged by nature; and third, displacing socioeconomically mediated anxieties onto designated enemies to be combatted by a revivified, masculine culture. Part 3 shows how Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life proposes a social Darwinism (indirect apologetics, function 1), whose darker underside is authoritarian permission to ‘kick down’ on the weak, or those who would seek to ameliorate sociopolitical conditions (indirect apologetics, functions 2, 3).

‘DAS MÖRDERISCHE GESETZ DES LEBENS’: ABORTION, EUGENICS AND SOCIAL DARWINISM IN DOLOROSA'S UNFRUCHTBARKEIT (1905) AND DIE STARKEN (1907)

ABSTRACTThis article deals with the literary contributions of the overlooked writer Dolorosa (a pseudonym for Maria Eichhorn), examining her work in conjunction with the eugenic and abortion debates prevalent in early twentieth‐century Germany. I analyse two of Dolorosa's novels, Unfruchtbarkeit (1905) and Die Starken (1907), and contextualise them within a broader artistic, cultural, and scientific milieu characterised by a pervasive emphasis on Social Darwinist principles of survival struggle. I also explore how the glorification of strength and competition was gendered during this period: men were often associated with attributes of power and conflict, while women were characterised by selfless and benevolent traits due to their maternal roles. In contrast to many feminists of her time who utilised eugenic ideals of motherhood to advocate for emancipation, Dolorosa diverges from the male‐dominated narrative surrounding survival struggle. Rather than reinforcing the legitimacy of the new ethics of the ‘right of the strong’, Dolorosa's portrayal of mothers grappling for survival prompts critical questioning of these emerging ideologies.

Huxley's Karma and Lu Xun's Ghosts

This article questions the secularist assumption in the received narrative of Chinese modernity by uncovering the religious ideas and imaginations that have since the outset mediated and shaped the Chinese discovery of evolutionary science, a massive phenomenon that has conventionally been understood in a scientistic and secularistic light. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this article revisits Tianyan lun—the Chinese translation of Thomas Henry Huxley's Evolution and Ethics and the single most influential book in initiating late-Qing intellectuals into social Darwinism—as a site for Buddhist global exchange and translingual practice, when the notion of “karma” offered Huxley and his Chinese translator and readers at once a ground of convergence and a point of departure. To Lu Xun and his brother Zhou Zuoren, from a hereditary perspective, karma has assumed the other name of history, while evolution unfolded in perpetual entanglements of humans and ghosts under a samsaric temporal scheme. Lu Xun's obsession with the netherworld has fostered, on the one hand, a deep pessimism about human developmental agency and the promise of the revolution and, on the other hand, an existential courage to confront the “realm of darkness.”

The Racialization of Killer Whales: An Application of Gene-Culture Coevolutionary Theory

Abstract An expanding body of research aims to identify culture in cetaceans, often positing killer whales as an exemplar species. To this end, gene-culture coevolutionary theory provides a conceptual language with which whales are discussed in raciological terms. It renders killer whale ecotypes as discrete cultures that are intrinsically xenophobic and evolutionarily divergent. Such research on whale culture intends to substantiate theories of divergent natural selection between human cultures as well. This effort furthers the essentialism, simultaneously biological and cultural, that has long impelled colonial technoscientific projects of racial typologization. The exchange between the raciologies of humans and killer whales is facilitated by the infrahumanizing frameworks of gene-culture coevolutionary theory that locate whale populations alongside indigenous peoples on a spectrum of cultural simplicity and complexity. At this convergence of the animal and the human, gene-culture coevolutionary theory posits indigenous peoples and killer whales as evidence for social Darwinist theories that dehistoricize and naturalize intercultural conflict and ethnicization. The extension of raciology beyond the human species signals an urgent need to decolonize the biological sciences.

Геополитика как идеология

The article presents arguments in favor of interpreting geopolitics as one of the widespread types of “false consciousness,” i.e., ideology. The author shows that the revival of the concept of geopolitics, as well as the ideas about the world of politics associated with this concept, was associated with the actualization of the neo-imperial view of the world. The basis of these ideologized ideas about politics as an arena for the implementation of the “intraspecific” struggle of states is a social Darwinist view of the world, according to which all peoples are enemies, conflict between states is the main form of relations between them according to the principle of a “zero-sum game”, and all unions, alliances and blocs are just tactical ploys that do not cancel the immanent common hostile essence. In other words, the ideology of geopolitics is based on the concept of “looking at neighbors through a gun sight.” The article is of a scientific and analytical nature and does not imply a direct connection with current policy issues.

‘Social Darwinism has moved to the cycle path’: framings of micromobility in the Dutch and British press

The media’s agenda-setting function in terms of selecting and presenting issues to the public and policymakers is crucial for the urgently needed transition towards more sustainable mobilities, including how the media frames micromobility. Media framings are representations, a key component of mobility, alongside physical movement and practice, all involving power relations. Drawing on mobility studies and discourse analysis, this paper compares how the Dutch and British national press frame micromobility. We identify five frames of micromobility: (1) as sustainable and active shift, predominant in the British press; (2) as disruption of the Dutch pedal-powered cycling regime; (3) as catalyst of conflicts in public space, both in the Dutch and British press; (4) around the shortcomings of micromobility regulations in both contexts; and (5) concerning lifestyle in the Dutch context. We demonstrate how media framings of micromobility only limitedly discuss its potential to transition from automobility, focusing instead on social status changes, regulatory challenges, and conflicts between different forms of micromobility, that are already marginalized. Our findings emphasize the urgency to put the transition from automobility—the elephant in the room—on the agenda.

A Post-Darwinian Fable: Canine Narration in The Call of the Wild

The paper reads Jack London’s The Call of the Wild as a post-Darwinian fable that challenges the anthropomorphism and sentimentality in the notoriously charged genre of the animal fable. London’s post-Darwinian representation of canine narration in an evolutionary continuum seeks to deconstruct the inherent hierarchy embedded in the fable. Through a reconciliation of the animal fable’s internal and external conflict, London aims to draw an ethical critique of amoral aspects of social Darwinism that underlies the American industry culture at the turn of the century. The remapping of humanity/animality, progression/regression, and the society/the wild within a bispecies environment for coevolution embodies London’s endeavor to rescue the reputation of the genre of fable from a conventional naturalist mode. London’s proclaimed vigor and science in the critique of animal fable further aspire to redeem the feminized professionalism of writing.

From Social Darwinism to Sociobiology: The Developmental Trajectory of Biological Determinism in Social Sciences

Biological determinism, the theory that human behavior is primarily determined by genetic factors, has sparked extensive debate and controversy between social and biological sciences since the late 19th century with the introduction of Darwin's theory of evolution. By examining the origins, development, and impacts of these theories on modern scientific research and social policy from historical and theoretical perspectives, this article reveals the limitations and potential risks inherent in scientific research and social policymaking. The article emphasizes the complexity of using these theories to explain human behavior and social structures, as well as their importance in formulating inclusive social policies.

Politický mýtus, Thomas Robert Malthus a vznik árijské rasové imaginace

The emergence of Nazi ideology and the rise of Nazism represented one of the most dramatic and tragic events of modern times, the consequences of which humanity is still dealing with today. The doctrine of the superiority of the Aryan race was an integral part of Nazi doctrine and served as a “scientific” justification for German expansionism and the policy of ethnic genocide. The Nazi conception of the German nation as the chosen Aryan racial community was identified as an example of a modern political myth by Henry Tudor in the early 1970s [Tudor 1972: 16]. We will attempt to explain the rise of Aryan ideology using the concept of political myth and Blumenberg’s notion of “work on myth” as the result of the long development of Western genealogical speculation, which underwent a process of secularization during the Enlightenment and once combined with stimuli coming from contemporary natural sciences, was used under the conditions of modern industrial society to “rationally” legitimize inequalities between people. A parallel development, consisting in the attempt to deny by scientific arguments the equality of human beings, despite the spread of liberal ideas inspired, among others, by the American and French Revolutions, took place in the economic sciences, where the doctrine of the British political economist Thomas Robert Malthus gained prominence at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Malthusianism, Aryan race ideology, Social Darwinism, or the eugenics movement thus had a common denominator, which Friedrich August von Hayek called the “counter-revolution of science” or Zeev Sternhell “counter-Enlightenment”.

Stát jako organismus? Kritická reflexe dosavadních interpretací konceptu státu Friedricha Ratzela

Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904) is often portrayed in the Czech context as a controversial figure in the development of political-geographical or geopolitical thought. This is probably a consequence of the lack of attention and research interest in the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, his conception of the state resonates quite strongly in the domestic literature. Available sources indicate that under the influence of Social Darwinism he came up with the idea of the state as a (living or biological) organism that must grow (expand its Lebensraum), become stronger and occupy more and more space in order to survive (in the struggle for life). This interpretation, which is in fact very misleading, forms an important pillar of Ratzel’s overall negative perception. For it implies that his conception of the state is an application of Darwin’s natural selection and the struggle for survival to human society, states and international relations. Such an interpretation of Ratzel’s thought sounds truly sinister, and in this vein could be used to justify territorial expansion as the natural right of the stronger. On closer examination, however, it turns out that the Social Darwinist interpretation of Ratzel’s thought is highly questionable and that his conception of the state cannot be used in this way.

Max Weber and the Cultural Evolution

Max Weber’s ambivalent view of evolutionary theory has sparked ongoing debate. While rejecting simplistic social Darwinism, his writings reveal an implicit evolutionary logic underlying broader cultural transformations. Across multiple works, Weber modeled cultural change through the interplay between charismatic innovation and institutional order. This paper argues Weber provides a sophisticated model of cultural evolution by elucidating the relationship between these two forces. The aim is to demonstrate how framing Weber’s dichotomy in evolutionary terms offers novel insight into his nuanced vision of social change.

Indignity of Nazi data: reflections on the utilization of illicit research

Human rights may feel self-apparent to us, but less than 80 years ago, one of the most advanced countries at the time acted based on an utterly contrary ideology. The view of social Darwinism that abandoned the idea of the intrinsic value of human lives instead argued that oppression of the inferior is not only inevitable but desirable. One of the many catastrophic outcomes is the medical data obtained from inhuman experiments at concentration camps. Ethical uncertainty over whether the resulting insights should be a part of the medical literature provides a chance to consider the seemingly irreplaceable social construct of human dignity. Would any medical benefit justify the utilization of this illicit data? Would utilization even qualify as an insult to the dignity of the exploited subjects, or is this a question about intersubjective meaning? This work discusses the wisdom in blind adherence to human dignity, the possibility of retrospective insults, moral complicity, contrary viewpoints, and possible resolutions.

The “veins and arteries of the country”

The Bulgarian Principality, established in 1878, witnessed serious contentions over railway accessibility. The central planning state, through its de facto practices of catering to local interests, polarised regions contending against one another. It also witnessed strife between rich and poor articulated in class-based party politics as well as intra-elite struggles between traditional and new elites, fought out in the sphere of cultural capital. Claims to rail accessibility and its gains were expressed in social Darwinian, ethnic, nationalist, economist and socialist discourses. By contrast, the factual division of the railway network into state-run and privately operated services evoked a sense of unity. The Orient Railways served as Enemy Within due to its multinational ownership and profit-oriented policy, first under Maurice de Hirsch's control and later the Deutsche Bank's. This “negative integration” served to gloss over the many social, ethnic, ideological and regional fault lines running through the country which the central state had not managed to bridge.

Darwinismo social y alimentación: la aportación de Fernando Monckeberg al programa de erradicación de la desnutrición en la dictadura chilena

This paper explores the malnutrition eradication plan devised and overseen by paediatrician and nutritionist Fernando Monckeberg within the framework of the malnutrition eradication policies implemented by the Chilean military dictatorship during the 1970s and 1980s. It also examines the theoretical and conceptual aspects developed by this author within the context of renewed social Darwinism, with eugenic consequences, such as “sociogenic damage” and the relationship between nutrition and intellectual development. It subsequently analyses practical and technical aspects encompassing the principles of healthcare intervention in populations, the relationship between nutrition and hygiene, and their implications for housing policies. In addition, the inherent contradictions and challenges associated with implementing social action programs amid the backdrop of a neoliberal dictatorship are considered.

The views of scientists-police officers on the problem of epidemic prevention

The subject of the study is the provisions formulated by foreign and domestic jurists in the field of policeistics regarding the prevention of epidemic threats. The article provides a comparative legal analysis of the views of cameralist authors on these issues in antithesis with the views of representatives of social Darwinism. The aim of the study is the scientific reconstruction of the political and legal model of the functioning of state power structures, namely the executive and medical police for the prevention of epidemic diseases, presented in the works of scientists-police officers of the late XVIII – early XX centuries. Abstraction, comparative legal and content analysis were chosen as the methods of study, with the help of which the works of political scientists were studied. The scope of application of the results and their novelty lies in the awareness of the value of the accumulated social and state-legal experience in the prevention of various kinds of epidemics. In the context of the emergence of a new coronavirus infection, the problem of determining and promptly applying a set of effective anti–epidemic measures has become particularly acute, many of which had deep historical roots and were reanimated as living conditions and everyday life, on the one hand, and the imperious dictates of the state, on the other. The conclusions and results of the work were accumulated on the basis of studying the works of representatives of the science of the police state and law. It was revealed that the stated problems are historically imperishable. The complex of preventive measures of an anti-epidemic nature was developed which historically spontaneously and entered into the usual norms of everyday life in Russia since ancient times. Since the XIV century, all kinds of quarantine and other restrictive measures have been taken to counteract mass diseases. At the same time, these diverse measures had a common focus despite the various sources of origin and development.

Chinese Immigrants - How to cross frontiers?

The issue of racial injustice has always been a topic in today’s democratic world. Especially during the epidemic, the status of Chinese Americans has once again been questioned and discussed. My research method is mainly based on the target of different classes of people. One is the bottom-level people engaged in labor activities, so I found a group of Chinese coolies. The others are Chinese immigrants with capital who can afford to live in other countries. In my research, I championed a case of a two-fold definition for the frontier, one is the geographical frontier, and the corresponding characters are the Chinese coolies, mainly about how they came to Latin America across the vast Pacific Ocean, what is the purpose of their search for this new continent, and what did they experience during their journey. Another definition is about the ideological frontier, mainly referring to the barriers established by racism, social Darwinism, and Manifest Destiny, how Chinese immigrants are socially isolated, and how they use the law weapons against these prejudiced ideologies.

Race(ism) and Art Music in Argentina: Analyzing Alberto Williams’ ‘La patria y la música’ (1921)

Abstract At the turn of the twentieth century, numerous Argentine intellectuals embraced positivist thinking in order to claim the ‘superiority’ of the white race and exclude the indigenous and African-descendant population from the foundational mythologies of the Argentinian nation-state. Darwin’s ideas on evolution – especially the concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ as filtered through the work of Herbert Spencer – coloured the discourses of a myriad of Argentine intellectuals, including artists. The creation of a nationalist music was a foremost concern among Argentine composers, who, influenced by these ideas, believed an Argentinian ‘high’ art should ‘elevate’ folk music through European techniques. In this paper, I concentrate on composer Alberto Williams to see how his career and relevant position in the musical milieu influenced and shaped the construction of an Argentine musical canon. I particularly focus on Williams’s speech, later published as an article, titled ‘La patria y la música’ (‘Fatherland and music’), to examine how his ideas on ‘music evolution’ and ‘race’, influenced by racial scientific ideas taken from European Positivism and Social Darwinism, shaped the discourses and development of a national (or nationalist) music in Argentina at the end of the nineteenth and through the twentieth centuries.

Imagined Musical Geographies in a Global Age: Views from Jodhpur, Istanbul and Buenos Aires, c. 1870–1930

Abstract This collection of papers explores the intellectual history of music in global context during the period between around 1870 and 1930. Following an introduction that discusses the state of the field, each of the three papers presents a case study that explores the intersection between music and global history from diverse perspectives. The first paper discusses a Hindi music treatise published in 1896. By situating this work within multiple ‘significant geographies’, the paper highlights the limitations of ‘global’ approaches that neglect the more immediate musical, social and intellectual environments of their subjects. The second paper analyses the intersection between music and Islamic modernism in the late Ottoman Empire. It argues that a Eurocentric understanding of music history propagated by earlier reformists was succeeded at the end of the nineteenth century by an oppositional narrative that drew on the geopolitical imaginary of pan-Islamism. The final paper discusses the work of the Argentine composer Alberto Williams, particularly in relation to his views on race and national music. The paper demonstrates how contemporary scientific theories such as positivism and Social Darwinism contributed to a narrative of national musical development that created hierarchies of musical genres and excluded Argentine composers of African descent.

Social Darwinism Revisited: How four critics altered the meaning of a near-obsolete term, greatly increased its usage, and thereby changed social science

Many social scientists still resist Darwinian insights. A possible reason for this is a fear of being associated with Social Darwinism. This article updates a 2002 search for appearances of Social Darwinism in articles and reviews on the JSTOR database. This database has since increased substantially in size, and it now includes far more publications in languages other than English. Use of the term Social Darwinism was rare before the 1940s. Talcott Parsons used it in 1932 to criticise the analytic use of the core Darwinian concepts in social science. Subsequently, and for the first time, Herbert Spencer and Willam Graham Sumner were described as Social Darwinists. This led to a major change of meaning of the term, where it was associated more, but not entirely, with free market individualism. With this reconstructed meaning, a 1944 bestselling book by Richard Hofstadter provoked an explosion of usage of the term in postwar years. The continuing use of the term is partly ideologically motivated and has served to deter consideration of Darwinian ideas in social science.