* From: Jim Devine
On 7/29/06, Charles Brown wrote: > CB: Yes, that's the type of thing I'm thinking about. "Darwinist" ideas in > the above social, non-biological context is social darwinist. Jim D: there's a whole field of "evolutionary game theory" which has a certain Darwinist tinge without being social Darwinist. Some old radical econmists (Herb Gintis, Sam Bowles) are into it. ^^^ CB: Yes, "darwinist" shades to materialist. ^^^^^^^ > Oddly I started thinking about this based on a critique of Nietzsche as > deriving an atheist philosophy that is propaganda for the ruling classes > based on social darwinist notions of the supermen/ruling class being more > naturally fit rather than chosen by God. Social darwinism is a broad atheist > counter-Marxist movement in bourgeois intellectualdom. Jim: I don't think Nietzsche was a social Darwinist. It's more a matter of feudal ideas of superiority. CB: I was thinking the same thing on the feudal superiority ( It's the author Landa who marks his social darwinism, though I have heard that elsewhere). In fact, I was thinking that Nietzche intellectual power might be in that he is representing the feudal and old Greek and Roman slave powers in European history, as well as the new bourgeoisie. In other words, N. atheism represents all the European ruling classes down through history; because all of them had to have a certain level of atheism, really, in order to keep a heads up and ahead of the classes they were ruling over. They may have professed belief in religion ( as many political reps of the bourgeoisie do today), but did the "masses" of the ruling classes really believe in Gods or God ? The article I read argues that N. developed an explicitly atheistic and social darwinist ideology in support of ruling classes ( "overmen")in the abstract, based on the notion of the "fittest" constituting that overclass. The article argues that he does this to counter the pro-working class atheism of Marxism. ^^^^^ Jim: Also, social Darwinism doesn't have to be atheist. It seems to me that social Darwinism can be merged with Calvinist ideas about financial success as being a symptom of God's grace. And there are a bunch of Protestants who like free market ideology. CB: Agree that it doesn't have to be. But of course it can be, and in the case of Nietzche, this writer , Ishay Landa, is arguing that it is a social darwinist atheism, with a sort of cruel and harsh Nature forcing social hierarchy on humans. It claims that Nietzche is arguing ( or "poet-ing") that ruling classes exist as a natural phenomenon. > But also, the capitalists are atheistic in essential function qua > capitalists. NC is a bourgeois atheist discipline ( so to speak, as it > were). This makes me wonder if it participates in the broad social > darwininst paradigm. NC isn't truly atheistic. They believe in the Invisible Hand (a.k.a., the Auctioneer). ^^^^ CB: OK. Gotta think about that. How about the capitalists, though ? And then I'm thinking that in fact, down deep, _all_ ruling classes have had to be more atheistic than the classes they ruled - religion was for keeping the masses in confusion. And maybe Nietszche's atheism represents the essential or de facto atheism of the feudal ( as you mention), capitalist and Greek and Roman slave rulers, all in one big reactionary atheist ideology.
