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I have been reading Pinker's discussion of social Darwinism and I found it a bit unsatisfactory. Pinker complains that the term is too widely used such that it has become meaningless. He seems to blame Richard Hofstadter's book, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 for this. He also pins blame on Stephen Jay Gould as well. Pinker seems to think that the only genuine form of social Darwinism was the kind that stemmed from the work of Herbert Spencer and his followers. Pinker takes some pains to show that Spencer's thinking about evolution was not Darwinian, but was very much Lamarckian. He also emphasizes that Spencer's thought was basically libertarian in character and that Spencer was an opponent of imperialism and eugenics. Hence, in Pinker's view, it's illegitimate to tie social Darwinism with other right-wing ideas . What Pinker's discussion ignores is that there were indeed other forms of social Darwinism around in the late 19th and early 20th centuries besides Spencer's. The German biologist Ernst Haeckel, the man who introduced and popularized Darwinism in Germany, was also the proponent of his own brand of social Darwinism. And his variety of social Darwinism was indeed less individualistic than Spencer's, placing emphasis of the struggle for existence between competing nations and races. Haeckel was politically an avid supporter of Otto von Bismarck. He was himself a staunch German nationalist and he attempted to use his work in evolutionary biology to lend support to his political beliefs including his embracing of "scientific racism." Pinker says nothing at all about Haeckel. His name does not even appear in the book's index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant http://www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math ---------- Original Message ---------- From: Louis Proyect via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> Subject: [Marxism] Fwd: Waiting for Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment | The Nation Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 13:02:08 -0500 ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. ***************************************************************** https://www.thenation.com/article/waiting-for-steven-pinkers-enlightenment/ _________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Buckingham Confirms Unfortunate News risingstarnewspaper.com http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5aa0a56164f41256111e7st02vuc _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
