Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism

All men are created equal and it follows that all women are created equal.  The United States Constitution states this and one would hope most of us believe it.  Almost opposite to everyone being equal is the concept and practice of discrimination.  Discrimination typically holds a belief that one or more groups is/are superior to another.  It is used by those who discriminate for a personal gain or out of stupidity and/or phony self glorification.  Discrimination is a selfish endeavor.

Darwin seems to have mixed this up a bit in our society values by describing that the strong will survive and the weak will not.  In other words he created from science the concept that maybe all humans are not equal.   Thus, when Darwin is applied to politics it gets messy and dangerous.  All men are created equal is sometimes a religious, a political, and legal ideal.   In our country we hopefully evolved (pun intended) to believe in our laws and political system that all people are equal as an ideal.  But how does the politically dark side of Darwin, that some people are disadvantaged, either innately or by design factor into political thinking?

Here is where Darwinism goes gray rather than black and white.  There is a reality that some individuals can not or decide not to excel.  The reasons may be due to mental or physical deficiencies or a temporary problem.  It might be due to really bad decision making.  It may be due to home and rearing problems and/or family hardships.  It may be due to substance abuse.  It may be due to any number of the prior factors or other factors that we do not yet recognize.  The analysis problem arises when political beliefs include the social Darwin viewpoint is inserted at the wrong moments and points of arguments.  We do need to recognize individuals are disadvantaged for reasons of offering programs to help them.  It becomes dangerous when political attitudes and political promotions, are reasoned to exclude those individuals because they currently have problems.  For example, some political views hold that there should be minimal state power.  Connecting the dots, what follows from that, calls for less social programs to help the disadvantaged.  A form of social Darwinism is used to rationalize out helping segments of our population so those who are not in that disadvantaged group gain.  Is this not a slightly obscure form of discrimination which also goes against the Constitution?

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