Re: Social Darwinism; was: So Long Judge Moore, We'll Miss You

ambrose searle wrote:
>>>He was not only a racist, but he promoted the idea that racial
>>>superiority was a product of natural selection. Thus, those who lived
>>>in colder climates (like white Northern Europeans) were forced by
>>>natural selection to evolve into more creative races that had the
>>>ingenuity to build fires and houses, while those living closer to the
>>>Equator (like Black Africans) remained inferior in their mental
>>>capacity.
>>>
>>>This is the "science" that ultimately led to Hitler's project of an
>>>Aryan super-race, via natural selection.
>>>
>>
>>Wrong.
>>
>>Hitler's desire for Aryan purity was NOT a case of trying to use
>>evolutionary principles to improve the race. 
> 
> 
> Wrong.

Your quotes don't support your claim; e.g.,

'The race theory proceeds
from the presupposition that the exclusive mating of every animal with
its own species is an "iron law" in nature.  Only exceptional
circumstances, such as captivity, are capable of causing a violation
of this law and to leading to racial interbreeding. When this occurs,
however, nature revenges itself and uses every means at its disposal
to oppose such infringements, either by making the bastard sterile or
by limiting the fertility of later offspring.'

is quite contrary to evolutionary concepts, but looks a lot like
support for the creationist claim that there's no macroevolution.
There's no doubt Hitler was influenced by Darwin,
but the result in his own mind was a severe perversion of it,
And I wouldn't count on your own ability to recognize the real thing.

OTOH, plenty of evolutionary biologists were (and are)
racists and misapply Darwin in support of it; I thought Gould's 
_Mismeasure of Man_ made that pretty clear.  This of course
has no bearing on the factual accuracy of Darwin's findings.



> Hitler and Social Darwinism:
> 
> The name of Hitler's book Mein Kampf was inspired by Darwin's
> principle that life was a constant struggle for survival, and those
> who emerged victorious survived. In the book Hitler talked of the
> struggle between the races, and said:
> 
> History would culminate in a new millennial empire of unparalleled
> splendour, based on a new racial hierarchy ordained by nature herself.
> [3]
> 
> That Nazism was influenced by Darwinism is accepted by almost all
> historians who are expert in the period. The historian Hickman
> expresses the influence of Darwinism on Hitler in these words.
> 
> (Hitler) was a firm believer and preacher of evolution. Whatever the
> deeper, profound, complexities of his psychosis, it is certain that
> [the concept of struggle was important because] … his book, Mein
> Kampf, clearly set forth a number of evolutionary ideas, particularly
> those emphasizing struggle, survival of the fittest and the
> extermination of the weak to produce a better society. [4]
> 
> In The Mass Psychology of Fascism Wilhelm Reich describes the Nazi
> theory of race thus:
> 
> Hitler got the idea of the necessity of a perpetual war and conflict
> among human races from the theories of Darwin.The race theory proceeds
> from the presupposition that the exclusive mating of every animal with
> its own species is an "iron law" in nature. Only exceptional
> circumstances, such as captivity, are capable of causing a violation
> of this law and to leading to racial interbreeding. When this occurs,
> however, nature revenges itself and uses every means at its disposal
> to oppose such infringements, either by making the bastard sterile or
> by limiting the fertility of later offspring. In every crossbreeding
> of two living creatures of different "levels," the offspring will of
> necessity represent something intermediate. But nature aims at a
> higher breeding of life; hence bastardization is contrary to the will
> of nature. Natural selection also takes place in the daily struggle
> for survival, in which the weaker, i.e., racially inferior, perish.
> This is consistent with the "will of nature," for every improvement
> and higher breeding would cease if the weak, who are in the majority,
> could crowd out the strong, who are in the minority. [5]
> 
> As we have seen, this biological view that forms the basis of the
> Nazi's race theory is undiluted Darwinism. Nonsense such as that
> nature's aim is to 'cause superior species to evolve,' that it uses
> natural selection to do so, and that the weak are inevitably
> eliminated are really just a summary of Darwinism.
> 
> These evolutionist views, which have no scientific basis and are just
> a reworking of the superstition of 'ascribing consciousness to
> nature,' existing in animist cultures, finally reached their
> culmination in the savagery of the Nazis. The theory was put into
> practice in human societies, again in a manner in conformity with
> Darwinism. Wilhelm Reich continues:
> 
> The National Socialist went on to apply this supposed law in nature to
> peoples. Their line of reasoning was something as follows: Historical
> experience teaches that the "intermixing of Aryan blood" with
> "inferior" peoples always results in the degeneration of the founders
> of civilization. The level of the superior race is lowered, followed
> by physical and mental retrogression; this marks the beginning of a
> progressive "decline." The North American continent would remain
> strong, Hitler states, "as long as he [the German inhabitant] does not
> fall a victim to defilement of the blood," that is to say, as long as
> he does not interbreed with non-Germanic peoples. [6]
> 
> When Hitler said, 'Take away the Nordic Germans and nothing remains
> but the dance of apes' he based that thought on the Darwinist ideas
> that man had evolved from apes, for which reason some of them still
> possessed 'ape status.' [7]
> 
> This logic constitutes the starting point of the horrible massacres
> they carried out against various races such as Gypsies, Slavs,
> Russians, and especially the Jews, and the horrible insensitivity they
> displayed while carrying out these horrendous acts.
> 
> 3-L.H. Gann, "Adolf Hitler, The Complete Totalitarian", The
> Intercollegiate Review, Fall 1985, p. 24.
> 4-Hickman, R., Biocreation, Science Press, Worthington, OH, pp. 51-52,
> 1983; Jerry Bergman, "Darwinism and the Nazi Race Holocaust", Creation
> Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 13 (2): 101-111, 1999
> 5-Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Farrar, Straus and
> Giroux, New York, 2000, p. 75-76
> 6-Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Farrar, Straus and
> Giroux, New York, 2000, p. 76
> 7-Carl Cohen, Communism, Fascism and Democracy, Random House, New
> York, 1972, p. 408-409
> 


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<J Q B>