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Social Darwin theory by Charles Darwin
Social darwinism and its impact on social welfare
The development of social Darwinism
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In the 1870s, the English sociologist Herbert Spencer applied Charles Darwin's theories of biological evolution to human behavior and institutions. Spencer used the idea of survival of the fittest in biology and theorized human society had evolved the same way (Cooper 15). Social Darwinism, as Spencer's theory is called, pits everyone against each other to survive in the world where humans are soldiers in a war for survival. If a person is poor, it is their fault and no one should help that person rise above the poverty status. If a person is rich, they are worthy of the position based on their actions, even if morally wrong. So if one is poor, the person will be weeded out of society while the rich survive.
The Social Darwinism of the nineteenth century contains several facets such as political, corporate, and individual forms of the theory. Although all these facets are found in Cyberpunk literature the genre mainly depicts the lower class of America's culture fighting for survival.
Many may argue this drive to survive, this Social Darwinism, can be found in genres other than Cyberpunk. In some ways that idea is true about Social Darwinism. For instance, the movie The Godfather had the Mafia families fighting for control of the crime syndicate. Sure they were struggling for survival, but what sets Cyberpunk apart is that absolutely everyone is struggling for survival. All the characters are looking for some sort of angle to get them ahead.
Also, Cyberpunk's survival of the fittest is based mainly on the technology of the times. Whoever has the faster interface or what corporation has the newest developed cyber-eye enhancement will win the evolutionary race. In something like The Godfather, the bigger Italian family w...
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... job market for instance, think of the skills needed to hired in any business. A secretary needs to be familiar with the latest desktop computer software to write reports or files. A car mechanic almost needs to be an electronic engineer in order to fix a broken fuel injector. In the present work force, a person needs to understand and utilize current technology in order to survive. In the coming decades, acceptance and application of new technology could decide, like in Cyberpunk, if one floats like algae or swims like an Angel Fish.
Works Cited
Cooper, John Milton. Pivotal Decades: The United States, 1900-1920. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1990.
Gibson, William. "Burning Chrome." Burning Chrome. Ed. William Gibson. New York: Ace Books, 1987. 168-191.
Shirley, John. "Freezone." Mirrorshades. Ed. Bruce Sterling. New York: Ace Books, 1988. 139-177.
Review of Frederick Lewis Allen: Since Yesterday: the 1930’s America. (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., 1939), 362 pp.
Harmon, William, William Flint Thrall, Addison Hibbard, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 11th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.
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 ...
Wukovits, John F., ed. America's Decades: The 1920's. San Diego: Greehaven Press Inc., 2000. Print.
Have you ever had the thought that technology is becoming so advanced that someday we might not be able to think for ourselves? There is no questioning the fact that we live in a society that is raging for the newest technology trends. We live in a society that craves technology so much that whenever a new piece of technology comes out, people go crazy to get their hands on it. The stories that will be analyzed are The Time Machine by H.G Wells and The Veldt by Ray Bradbury. These stories offer great insight into technologies’ advancements over time that will ultimately lead to the downfall of human beings. These two stories use a different interpretation of what will happen when technology advances, but when summed up a common theme appears. In the story, The Time
Lindop, Edmund, and Margaret J. Goldstein. America In The 1920s. Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group Inc., 2010. Print.
Foner, Eric and John A. Garraty. The Reader’s Companion to American History. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991).
...nd again resulting in creation of bigger markets and pulling large competitors and creating new job opportunities, but the problem is with undefined factors like outsourcing, lack of skill development in respect with technology advancement. Technology advancement may be causing huge impact on employment but it is also making human living better. Technology as became part and parcel of our life so we can’t think of life without technology, but to make sure that the same does not harm our livelihood we should keep in track and sharpen and hone our skills with advancement of technology. (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011)
Boyer,Paul S. Editor, the Oxford Guide to United States History, New York Oxford University Press, 2001
All throughout the late 1960s, Richard Brautigan experienced immense popularity. Every book he published up to the 1970s, from Trout Fishing in America, A Confederate General from Big Sur, to In Watermelon Sugar gained critical acclaim. Critics hailed Brautigan “as a fresh new voice in American literature” (Barber 4). He was adored by both readers and critics alike, and many consider his most famous book, Trout Fishing in America, to be one of the first popular representatives of postmodern literature (4). His books became cult classics among the youth generation of the time, the infamous counterculture that arose during the 1960s. This counterculture was that of the hippie youth movement, which started from the cultural values of the Beat Generation. The hippie youth movement created their own culture characterized by psychedelic rock, open sexuality and the use of hallucinogens.
Traxel, David. 1898: The Birth of the American Century. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1998. Print.
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.
The theory of social darwinism was first introduced to the public[1] in “A Theory of Population, Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility”, an article by Herbert Spencer published in 1852. This work preceded the publishing of Darwin’s book by seven years, and “given the timing, it is curious that Darwin’s theory was not labeled ‘natural Spencerism’ instead of Spencer’s theory being labeled ‘social Darwinism.’”[2] Spencer’s article, though mainly focused on biology and the ways in which animal populations develop, does include an inkling of the social ideas he would later more fully examine. His main theory of population deals with survival of the fittest, a phrase he coins in this a...
In the late 1970's and early '80's and new type of writing style came about that relied on many of the traditional criteria to be called science fiction, but had a certain something else that had many people agreeing that it was not just science fiction. This new style of writing was so different and so many people started writing in this style that the general public decided that it was time this genre of writing deserved a label: cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is not an easy group of writing to define on paper, but it is easy to spot when one is reading it. The cyberpunk writing movement started out with many short stories then became recognizable to the masses with probably the movements most successful novel, entitled Neuromancer. William Gibson's novel was the first major work to get recognized from this category, it seemed to set the precedence of what cyberpunk included, and what a piece of writing needed to have to get labeled cyberpunk. Cyberpunk does not define the works that are in it, rather, the works define what cyberpunk consists of.
To remain competitive and employable in the twenty-first century workplace, society today must conform to the changing demands. Technology is one of the principal driving forces of the future; it is transforming our lives and shaping our future at rates unprecedented in history, with profound implications, which we cannot even begin to see or understand.