Editor's Choice
What is the connection between Darwin and nationalism, imperialism, and war?
Quick answer:
Darwin's theories of natural selection were misapplied to human societies through "Social Darwinism," a concept popularized by figures like Herbert Spencer. This misinterpretation justified nationalism, imperialism, and war, suggesting that the "fittest" societies had the right to dominate others. This ideology supported oppressive policies and was used by industrialists, colonizers, and political leaders, including Hitler, to rationalize actions like imperialism and genocide, thus distorting Darwin's original ideas.
While Charles Darwin was thoroughly English, he was not involved in politics and he did not explicitly endorse British imperialism. During his lifetime his ideas were hotly contested, and it was another Englishman, Herbert Spencer, who actually coined the phrase "survival of the fittest."
From the 1860s onward, Spencer was instrumental in applying Darwin's theories about the natural world to the social world. Darwin did write about the relation of creation to evolution, discussing the emergence of religious systems in TheDescent of Man, but he was not a social scientist and he was not a proponent of social evolution or "social Darwinism," a term dating to the 1870s.
The idea of social evolution distorted Darwin's claims, attributing social development to natural laws and justifying the oppressive and paternalist policies that undergirded nationalism and imperialism. Under the "white man's burden" idea (Rudyard Kipling's phrase), societies and people that saw...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
themselves as more evolutionarily advanced (i.e., white male Europeans) had the responsibility of providing moral, political, and economic uplift to those less socially evolved (i.e., everyone else). These distortions of Darwinism were bandied about by industrialists like J. D. Rockefeller, colonizers like Cecil Rhodes, and politicians including Hitler.
The Nazi appropriation of evolutionist ideas to promote Aryan superiority and justify both genocide and military conquest is the most egregious example of the abuse of Darwin's theories. In "racial science" around the world, however, eugenics was used to rationalize immigration policy, imprisonment, institutionalization, and even the sterilization of the "unfit," often in conjunction with military conflicts.
References
The connection you can make here is that Darwin's ideas of natural selection were taken by people studying society and applied to human societies. According to "Social Darwinism," the fittest survive in human society as well.
This helped intensify feelings of nationalism. People in various countries felt they were the fittest. They wanted to prove this through imperialism and through war. They felt that their "fitness" entitled them to rule the human world and they wanted to prove that through war.
Many such people also thought war was good for a country. They felt that engaging in war would make their country stronger. It would do so in a way similar to the way exercise helps an individual. By going to war, the country would be become more "fit."