tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post5875730803803639598..comments2024-03-15T19:54:18.063+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Barack Obama and the Progressive Myth of "Social Darwinism"Larry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-63759269030455885952012-05-04T17:00:23.931+01:002012-05-04T17:00:23.931+01:00One of the problems we face is we view the Darwini...One of the problems we face is we view the Darwinian environment as universally harsh. This is really quite ignorant of the science of evolution, and it is why we don't understand our political ideologies better. I can't complain too hard, I did the same thing when I was young. I looked at Liberals, and thought that in a “state of nature,” they'd be killed in a microsecond. It baffled me how such a maladaptive misfit could persist in our species. But this was foolish.<br /><br />As Evolutionary Ecology shows us in r/K Selection Theory, Darwin offers two different environments to organisms. The K-selective environment is indeed quite harsh. Individuals compete for limited resources, and some are denied sustenance until the die. As is well known, this favors a psychology which seeks to compete with peers (think capitalism or war), mate monogamously, raise offspring in two-parent families, and delay the onset of sexual activity in the young. Clearly, this K-selected psychology is the evolutionary origin of Conservatism. Obviously when Obama says, “Social Darwinism,” that is the environment he is referencing. It is also the “State of Nature” I pictured, as I viewed Liberals. In a K-selected environment of limited resource availability, indeed, most Liberals would be killed quite quickly. But this is because Liberalism is not an adaptive strategy designed to meet the K-selected environment.<br /><br />The second environment Darwin may offer, however, Liberalism is perfectly adapted to. In the r-selected environment, some form of mortality, so overwhelming that it might as well be random, culls the population back well below the carrying capacity of the environment. As a result, there are far more resources than any individual could consume. Picture a rabbit, in a ten acre field of grass he could never fully consume. In this environment, the r-selection favors a psychology which is averse to all competitions with peers (since they are a waste of time, energy, and risk), embraces promiscuous mating over monogamy, single parenting over two-parent parenting, and is supportive of early onset of sexual activity among the youth. In this environment of free resource availability, Liberalism is designed to thrive. Here, it will numerically outcompete the K-selected psychology in the race to produce offspring with ease<br /><br /> So Obama supports Social Darwinism as well. His version is just a sort of Social r-Selection, where the free resource availability is provided by a government which seizes resources from the productive, to feed the unproductive. The problem is, the less responsible unproductive are turning out kids ten at a time, and the free resource availability is allowing their cohort to grow exponentially. Clearly this is the same problem which seems to eventually collapse every great, productive society. The productivity allows free resource availability, and that r-selects the populace, and before you know it, you have a nation so full of useless sloths, that the productive can no longer carry them, and a collapse ensues.<br /><br /> I've done a lot of research on this, if you're interested, Arnhart. Stop by my site, and check it out. If you want a free pdf of the book there, drop me a line, and I'll send it along, though the paper, “Modern Political Thought in the Context of Evolutionary Psychology” is a more concise read.<br /><br /> www.anonymousconservative.comAnonymous Conservativehttp://www.anonymousconservative.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-40687295188290549292012-04-24T02:18:50.700+01:002012-04-24T02:18:50.700+01:00http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/0...http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/conservative-confusion-over-obama-and-social-darwinism/255560/<br /><br />Robert Wright, the Darwinian progressive, has a post on this as well. See above link.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-82783125728868787452012-04-19T16:26:30.682+01:002012-04-19T16:26:30.682+01:00Social Darwinism, as I understand it, and as it wa...Social Darwinism, as I understand it, and as it was used by the Nazis, isn't an ethical theory at all. It's a metaethical theory that the meaning of "good" is that which wins a struggle. Basically, might makes right.Empedoclesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-9055630579572390842012-04-19T06:36:58.210+01:002012-04-19T06:36:58.210+01:00Thanks for writing this, Professor Arnhart. I kno...Thanks for writing this, Professor Arnhart. I know this will change the way I introduce the history of the Victorian Era in my course on Modern British Literature.<br /><br />Even if "Social Darwinism" is a bit of a strawman, I would still say that one operating principle for the Victorian English writers is a strong concern for the loss of faith generally, especially in the face of the advancement of science. Darwin himself speaks of such concerns, and we also see it, for example, in Matthew Arnold's metaphor of the "sea of faith" waning away in "Dover Beach."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com