Social Darwinism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| * [[Cultural evolution]] | * [[Cultural evolution]] | ||
| * [[Cultural selection theory]] | * [[Cultural selection theory]] | ||
| - | * [[Environmental racism]]{{Div col end}} | + | * [[Environmental racism]] |
| * [[Hierarchy]] | * [[Hierarchy]] | ||
| * [[Human development (disambiguation)|Human development]] | * [[Human development (disambiguation)|Human development]] | ||
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Social Darwinism is a theory that competition among all individuals, groups, nations or ideas drives social evolution in human societies. The term draws upon Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, where competition between individual organisms drives biological evolutionary change (speciation) through the survival of the fittest.
The term was popularized in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter, and has generally been used by critics rather than advocates of what the term is supposed to represent.
While the term has been applied to the claim that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection can be used to understand the social endurance of a nation or country, social Darwinism commonly refers to ideas that predate Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. Others whose ideas are given the label include the 18th century clergyman Thomas Malthus, and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who founded eugenics towards the end of the 19th century.
Some claim that it supports racism on the lines set out by Arthur de Gobineau before Darwin published his theories, which directly contradict Darwin's own work. This classification of social Darwinism constitutes part of the reaction against the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.
See also
See also
- Cultural elitism
- Cultural evolution
- Cultural selection theory
- Environmental racism
- Hierarchy
- Human development
- Meritocracy
- Scientific racism
- Social ecology
- Social implications of the theory of evolution
- Social progress
- Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology
- Supremacism
- Transhumanism
- Universal Darwinism
