Social Darwinism

A pseudo sociologist named Herbert Spenser theorized that rich folks got that way through a process of Darwinian natural selection. Historian Richard Hofstadter sought to debunk Spenser in his book "Social Darwinism In American Thought, 1860-1915."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• social
• darwinism
• herbert
• spenser
• richard
• hofstadter
• graham
• sumner
• natyral
• selection
• commentary
• analysis
• documentary

[pizzasuits]

Social Darwinism dosnt account for the frawd, corruption, illegal schemes, and people born with inharatance. so these are factors as well. Also consider this... take a pair of identical twins and put one in an affluent upbringing. next take the seccond and place him far away in the worst with bad upbringing.... compare after 30 years. One works at walmart, one is a commercial airline piolet.

[radiohogan]

@pizzasuits

You did not understand the video. Social Darwinism justifies all the examples you gace.

[c130fonz]

Sir, Thank you very much for the video. I'm going to read SOCIAL DARWINISM now.

V/r

[radiohogan]

@c130fonz

"Social Darwinism In American Thought" by Richard Hofstadter.

[aneduc8tor1]

Radio hogan, nicely and aptly put. (Responses and video).

[radiohogan]

@aneduc8tor1

Thank you! All the Best / Mike

[radiohogan]

@koyunbaba73

As to your reference to "cheating and theft," I don't merely accuse the Robber Barons of the First Gilded Age & the Second Gilded Age (our time) of theft and cronyism; in addition, I accuse the Robber Barons of the intentional MASS MURDER of Labor - perhaps as many as Stalin murdered in Russia and the Ukraine. We, as a people need to get over this Post Infantile Hypnosis we have with the Gilded Age. The rich had fun. For the poor & working class, it was early death - at best.

[radiohogan]

@gunman806

See my video "Pedagogy of the Oppressed Parts 1&2." I favor a class conflict paradigm in education.

[elviscash56]

Regardless of any negative connotations associated with it, it social darwinism clearly exists and clearly describes much of the world.

[Activeassholeonpills]

The denigration of Second Generation Human Rights is Social Darwinism by definition.

[prheusse]

@gunman806 Cause versus correlation my friend. It isnt enough to simply cite the numbers without considering the context. IQ doesn't occur in a vaccum- its part genes and part resource access (which doesnt imply a 50/50 split). At what point in one's life history can IQ be reliably measured? Only after exposure to sparse, moderate, or ample resources. Furthermore, your forgetting a host of social psychological variables. In short, your account is only a part of the picture.

[FreeTheWorker]

@gunman806 I'm quite sure people who inherent massive sums of wealth, are lucky, or exploit poor and desperate people to make their fortunes, are the most intelligent among us.

Of course we live in a class society, the rich send their children to schools to learn to be artisans academics and leaders, labor sends our children to public schools where they are taught obedience and basic factory and cubicle knowledge.

[Imhornydadcomeinside]

@radiohogan You're right, how many times today haven't poor people been accused of being "lazy dumb leeches" by rich republicans? Herbert spencer lives through the rps, and the coprorations that are today ruining american economy.

[featheon]

@gunman806

The tragic flaw in your argument is that you seem to believe IQ tests are some kind of objective measuring rule that is free from relative cultural values. It isn't. IQ measures a persons ability to cope with and adapt to a particular set of cultural values, particularly tied to the values of Western "rationalism." Intelligence in this sense is no more neutral than the notion of "normal behavior" because it is always relative to a particular society. So what's firm about it?

[stuntbaby63]

Thank you for the interesting video. At the end, when you highlight the importance of "equality", I'm assuming you mean the equality of outcomes. Is that right? How would you measure that against the importance of "liberty"? Since our society can't be both free and equal, which of these competing values should be sacrificed? Thanks.