Social Darwinism: An Ideology for Mass Murder

882 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How racism in Nazi Germany manifested itself

In 1859, a new philosophy promoting the theory of evolution was introduced to the world by Charles Darwin in his book, The Origin of Species. In this work, Darwin espoused humans evolve by struggling through a process of natural selection, rather than by the influence of a divine creator. Darwin’s view of this evolutionary struggle came to be described simply as “survival of the fittest.” Although Darwin cannot be blamed for the Holocaust, overwhelming evidence exists, which identifies Social Darwinism as a major influence behind the Nazi leadership’s effort to exterminate the Jewish race during the Second World War.v

While the title of Darwin’s work is generally recognized as The Origin of Species, its actual title, The Origin of Species of Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, more accurately reflects his racist convictions . Social Darwinism concepts contradicted traditional values of Judeo-Christian religion, which advocated equality of the individual. John Whitehead, noted contributor to the Huffington Post reveals, “By the late 1800s, science had become the new religion, with Darwinism being its central tenet.” Karl Schleunes, author of The Twisted Road to Auschwitz, adds, “. . . the development of Social Darwinism gave to racism and anti-Semitism . . . a foundation it would not have found for itself.” This new scientific religion, along with its racist ideology, would eventually become a major force within the value system of the future Nazi party; one that perhaps may have been absent without the advent of Social Darwinism.

According to the Holocaust Museum, Social Darwinism promotes that “. . . human beings were not one species, but divided into several different ...

... middle of paper ...

...ocaust of the Second World War.

Works Cited

"Antisemitism in History: Racial Antisemitism, 1875–1945." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed May 15, 2014. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007171.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf (Munich: Nsdap, 1943), 316-317.

McMillian, Dan. "Hitler, Darwin And The Holocaust: How The Nazis Distorted The Theory Of Evolution." Salon. Accessed May 16, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2014/04/19/charles_darwins_tragic_error_hitler_evolution_racism_and_the_holocaust/.

Schleunes, Karl. The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933-1939. Reprinted. Urbana, IL: University Of Illinois Press, 1970.

Whitehead, John. "What Did Charles Darwin Really Believe?." Huffington Post. Accessed February 12, 2009. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/what-did-charles-darwin-r_b_166521.html.

Show More
Related

  • Holocaust vs. Native American Genocide

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 05 May 2014.

    Read More

  • The War Against The Jews, by Lucy Dawidowicz

    2693 Words  | 6 Pages

    Dawidowicz, Lucy S.. The war against the Jews, 1933-1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.

    Read More

  • Darwin, Booker T. Washington and the Feminist Movement: How They Have All Influenced Modern Society

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Charles Darwin’s life he had helped make a significant advancement in the way mankind viewed the world. With his observations, he played a part in shifting the model of evolution into his peers’ minds. Darwin’s theory on natural selection impacted the areas of science and religion because it questioned and challenged the Bible; and anything that challenged the Bible in Darwin’s era was sure to create contention with the church. Members of the Church took offense to Darwin’s Origins of Species because it unswervingly contradicted the teachings of the book of Genesis in the Bible. (Zhao, 2009) Natural selection changed the way people thought. Where the Bible teaches that “all organisms have been in an unchanging state since the great flood, and that everything twas molded in God’s will.” (Zhao, 2009) Darwin’s geological journey to the Galapagos Islands is where he was first able to get the observations he needed to prove how various species change over t...

    Read More

  • Evolution: It Should Be Taught In Schools

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... The “Doubting Darwin”. Newsweek.com - "The New York Times" 07 Feb 2005. 44. eLibrary.

    Read More

  • The History Of The Scopes Monkey Trial

    1647 Words  | 4 Pages

    Charles Darwin, the Father of Evolution, was a British scientist who laid the foundations of the theory of evolution, transforming the thinking of the entire world about the living things around us (Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)). After working on his theory for nearly 20 years, he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859. As soon as the book was released, the controversy began with each sides gaining followers until the climax on July 10, 1925. The idea that animals could “evolve” and change into new species, including humans, was one that challenged not only how people thought about the natural world, but challenged the story of the creation from the Bible itself. Even though Darwin himself never said that humans “evolved” from apes, everyone took it as a logical extension of his new theory. It went against the idea of argument for design that had unified theology and science for decades (Moran 5). This new threat to Christianity and the social culture of the time was one that would transform state laws on their educational curriculum.

    Read More

  • The Rise Of Anti-semitism In Germany

    2133 Words  | 5 Pages

    One of the first writers to express the racial anti-Semitic view was Wilhelm Marr, who it is believed invented the word “anti-Semitism”. He, like other Germans had grievance with the Jews on the basis that a universally successful Jew had pushed them out of getting a good job. Marr himself was fired from his job as a journalist at a paper owned by Jews. He wrote “Der Sieg des Judentums uber das Germanentum”. In other words Jew was not contrasted with Christian, religiously but with German, racially. In 1879 he founded The Antisemiten-Liga, its purpose was in short to bring together all non-Jewish Germans into a common union which strives to saving the Fatherland from the Jewish influence. Marr was the first to appreciate the possibili...

    Read More

  • Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

    916 Words  | 2 Pages

    Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Classic House, 2008. Print.

    Read More

  • Auschwitz: Should It Have Been Bombed?

    1589 Words  | 4 Pages

    Rubinstein, William D. The Myth of Bombing Auschwitz. The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis. London: Routledge, 1997. 157-81. Print.

    Read More

  • German Jewry on the Eve of Destruction

    1768 Words  | 4 Pages

    Did the Jews of Germany do enough to prevent their wholesale massacre by the Nazis? Should they have resisted earlier and to a greater degree? Should the Jews in Western countries acted even when Jews within Germany did not? In 1933, there were several different responses to Germany's increasingly anti-Jewish tendencies. Then, on the eve of destruction, before the Nazis had fully planned for their extermination, the German Jews had a chance to affect Germany and their own lives. I have chosen a few of the German Jewish responses to examine in this essay.

    Read More

  • Why Darwinism Is Just A Theory?

    854 Words  | 2 Pages

    Keith Henson a writer in evolutionary psychology once said that “Evolution acts slowly. Our psychological characteristics today are those that promoted reproductive success in the ancestral environment.” Evolution was first introduced by a naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin. Darwin had written an autobiography, at the age of 50, On the Origin of Species (1859) explaining how species evolve through time by natural selection; this theory became known as Darwinism. “Verlyn Klinkenborg, who writes editorials and vignettes on science and nature for the “New York Times”” (Muller 706) questions Darwin’s theory in one of his essays he wrote called Darwin at 200: The Ongoing Force of His Unconventional Idea. Both articles talk about the theory of Darwinism, but the authors’ use different writing techniques and were written in different time periods. Darwin himself writes to inform us on what the theory is, where as Klinkenborg goes on to explain why Darwinism is just a theory. Today, evolution is still a very controversial topic among many. It comes up in several topics that are discussed everyday such as in politics, religion and education.

    Read More

  • The Holocaust

    2615 Words  | 6 Pages

    Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage, 1997. Print.

    Read More

  • Social Darwinism, the Gospel of Wealth, and the Gilded Age

    649 Words  | 2 Pages

    Social Darwinism is a late 19th century term used to describe the application of British naturalist Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection to social and political conditions. Late 19th century sociologist Herbert Spencer tried to capture the essence of social Darwinism with his phrase “survival of the fittest”. This essentially meant that the strong would rise to the top while the weak simply died out. Social Darwinists eschew social responsibility and compassion, instead believing that some people are more fit to survive than others. Many social Darwinists advocated that the government should maintain a laissez-faire, or hands off, approach when it came to regulating economic competition and alleviating social inequalities. Social Darwinism was used to justify the consolidation of the majority of wealth by a minority of Americans. The term allowed people to rationalize capitalism, imperialism, racism, and even eugenics. The wealthy believed in social Darwinism because it allowed them to justify their oppressive business tactics and low wages for their labor force. Politicians believed in it because it allowed them to justify imperialism, or expansion of the nation. Affluent Anglo-Saxons believed in social Darwinism, believing themselves to be the superior race, and used it to justify ...

    Read More

  • Thre Views of Social Darwinism

    1702 Words  | 4 Pages

    The concept of Social Darwinism was a widely accepted theory in the nineteenth-century. Various intellectual, and political figures from each side of the political spectrum grasped the theory and interpreted it in various ways. In this paper, we will discuss three different nineteenth-century thinkers and their conception of Social Darwinism. The conservative, Heinrich von Treitschke, and liberal Herbert Spencer both gave arguments on the usefulness of competition between people on a global scale. The anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, refuted the belief of constant competition among members of the same species and emphasized mutual aid.

    Read More

  • History of Judaism

    2136 Words  | 5 Pages

    Kaplan, Marian A., Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999

    Read More

  • Franz Boas Discuss the Contribution of Anthropology

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    MacDonald, K. (1998). The Boasian School of Anthropology and the Decline of Darwinism in the Social Sciences. In, MacDonald, K., The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements. California State University: Long Beach, pp. 20-50.

    Read More

More about Social Darwinism: An Ideology for Mass Murder

Open Document