Social Darwinism And Racism example essay topic

Imperialism: Social Darwinism and Racism "Take up the White Man's burden - Send forth the best ye breed - Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild - Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child". (Rudyard Kipling "The Whiteman's Burden") The desire to increase ones country's land holdings, and ultimately its power, is not new. The reasons for justifying a war of conquest though, do change. As humanity progresses, the reasons get more and more convoluted.

The domination of a foreign culture by an imperial power became a more and more common throughout the early 19th century. This imperialism was done predominantly done by white people, over non-white indigenous peoples. The justification was that white people are simply culturally, genetically, and technologically superior to the non-white peoples. It was the Whiteman's burden to civilize the savages, and he was going to do just that. "Social Darwinism" It is the idea that there are such things as inferior races.

Social Darwinism is the application of evolution to society. The person who coined the term "Social Darwinism" was Herbert Spencer. Supporters of Social Darwinism thought the idea that there are different sub-species of Man, and that some are better then others. Imperialists were not conquering defenseless people, they were civilizing them!

Social Darwinism asserted that White was right. "The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history-the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. This race of unequaled energy, with all the majesty of numbers and the might of wealth behind it-the representative, let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization-having developed peculiarly aggressive traits calculated to impress it institutions across the Earth".

(Our Country, Josiah Strong). Imperialism's ultimate aim was to have a homogenous population, that was covered the whole entire earth. Imperialists of this time were justified on so many levels in their thinking. Social Darwinism was a construct that welded biological science (evolution) with social science. A philosopher of the 19th century, Herbert Spencer said, "this law of organic progress is the law of all progress. Whether it be in the development of the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, the development of Society, of Government, ... , this same evolution of the simple into the complex, through a process of continuous differentiation, holds throughout".

(Progress: Its Law and Cause). The science of the time also backed up the racist and social Darwinism theories of the time. According to Sir Harry Johnston "If we took all the factors into consideration-religion, education, (especially knowledge concerning the relations between this planet and the universe of which it is a minute speck, the history and geography of the planet, the sciences that are a part of earth study, ) standard of living, respect for sanitation, infant death rate, bodily strength, manner of government, regard for law and order, position in agriculture and manufacturing, we might appease mathematically according to the following ration, the principal nations and peoples into which humanity is divided". (The Backward Peoples). Sir Henry goes to break down the various populations of the world and their percentages of people with white skin. He then talks about the importance of having a large percentage of white individuals.

He says "Obviously the foremost nations in the world at the present day are Britain and the regions of the British Empire in which the white race predominates" and that "It is the peoples of 95 percent to 90 percent, that may be put in the unprogressive or retrograde class, unable to at present to govern themselves in a manner conducive to progress; while those that are graded 80-75 percent still contain in their midst elements of sheer savagery. Such regions, if left alone by the controlling white men, might easily relapse into the unprofitable barbarism out of which they have been lifted with the white mans efforts during the past fifty years" (The Backwards People) The factor racism has played in the various affairs of man is another thing to be considered. Racism is something that has existed in every society, and still is with us today. For every race there is, there is a race that tries to oppress them. There is oppression of religious groups, and for every color of man, there is racism against them.

The pride for one's race is quite ironic, because in all actuality there is no such thing as a "pure" race. Racism is used mainly as a tool to achieve some political, social, economic, or military aim. The kings of the distant past encouraged anti-Semitism when they didn't want to pay the Jewish bankers back, and the southern states of the United States encouraged racism against blacks for economic reasons as well. Every racial group has a history of racism in some form or another; even the Jewish people themselves were guilty of it in their conquering of the Promised Land. The Imperialistic duties that many countries took on were racially motivated as well. The British thought, and truly believed in that many of the countries that they held as territories were simply incapable of governing themselves in an effective manner.

The people of India just did not possess the racial characteristics that are conducive to effective government, it was their duty to govern and reap the profits. In the late 19th century many of the themes that led to the conflicts of the 20th century were developed. One of the most influential writings were those of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Nietzsche put forth the idea of a racial "superman". The superman ideal was used to develop the concepts of Nazism later on, and Hitler was a huge proponent of Nietzsche's work.

Nietzsche's concepts justified many of the totalitarian regimes that came after of time, but there is some debate over what Nietzsche actually meant because he did suffer from syphilis (which in the late stages causes mental instability). One of the problems facing humanity is the widespread belief in Pseudo science. Things that are supposedly scientific fact but are quite the opposite. A great example of pseudo science is phrenology. Which is the study of bumps on the head. According to phrenology your moral values could be found by studying bumps in your head.

Of course all of this was scientifically proven by scientists of the day. Phrenology was widely believed in during the 19th century, around the same time Social Darwinism was accepted as well. Examples of Pseudoscience still stuck around though, and as late as 1926 stuff like this was still being published: "The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolians as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characteristics, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens"The Evolution of Human Races. Social Darwinism and Racism shaped the world we live in today. It planted the seeds that led to so many very important events.

The problem is that we still are reaping the foul crops of Racism and Social Darwinism. The justification of subjugation is never proper; conquering a people can never be "civilized".

Bibliography

1: Distance, Patrick". Themes of the 19th century" 12 September 2003 web 2 March 2004 2: Curry, Bill.
The Will To Power"11 May 2000 web 9 March 2004 3: Kaye, Howard.
The Social Meaning of Modern Biology: From Social Darwinism to Sociobiology Transaction Pub. 1997 4: Dealer, Carl.
In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought. Oxford University Press. 1991.
5: Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Thought. by Beacon Press. 1992.
6: Johnson, Harry. "The Backward Peoples" London: Oxford University Press. 1920.