Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a term and
powerful idea that was loosely used and derived from Charles Darwin’s theories
of Natural Selection. This idea strongly reinforced the idea of individualism.
Herbert Spencer was a British philosopher and applied Darwin’s theory of
evolution to the human society. In Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, he argued
that plant and animal life evolved by a process called natural selection.
During natural selection, organisms that cannot adapt to the surroundings
eventually die off and those who do adapt evolve and live longer. Spencer took
this theory and argued that the human society also evolved through competition
and natural selection. Spencer as well as others became known as Social Darwinists
because they believed that society progressed and became better because the
fittest survived.
We have all heard of the
catchphrase “survival of the fittest”. This line became the slogan for the
Social Darwinists. Well for many of the Christians these ideas of Darwinism
were offensive and upsetting. Because they believed that the theory
contradicted the Bible, they in turn reject the idea. Later on some ministers
would conclude that maybe that was God’s way of creating the world. The name
for these people, especially the renowned Henry Ward Beecher, called themselves
a “Christian evolutionist”.
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