If "You Think Darwin Sounds Like A Nazi, There Is A Connection" (page 3)

quietlyleaving

Burger there were scientists around during Darwin's time that were not racist.

BurnTheShips

In Campolo's Philadelphia Inquirer article, there are no citations offered, no page references to either of Darwin's works. So how can any of the statements be verified? Given the severity of the allegations that he makes, Campolo should have supplied page references. Exactly where [i.e., on what page] does Darwin write the things that Campolo claims he writes?

This is a magazine/newspaper article, not a peer reviewed journal paper.

As far as the Nazis' misappropriation of Darwin's ideas, the Nazis did the same thing with Nietzsche. The Nazis were all too happy to pervert and warp the ideas of almost any thinker whom they chose.

When we look at Nietzchian philosophy, with its vilification of morality and exaltation of the rapacious overman, no warping or perversion is necessary to bring it to the service of the Nazi movement. Let me quote my old standby, Shirer's tome on the Third Reich:

...Yet I think no one who lived in the Third Reich could have failed to be impressed by Nietzsche 's influence on it. ....Yet Nazi scribblers never tired of extolling him. Hitler often visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and publicized his veneration for the philosopher by posing for photographs of himself staring in rapture at the bust of the great man. There was some ground for this appropriation of Nietzsche as one of the originators of the Nazi Weltanschauung. Had not the philosopher thundered against democracy and parliaments, preached the will to power, praised war and proclaimed the coming of the master race and the superman-and in the most telling aphorisms? A Nazi could proudly quote him on almost every conceivable subject, and did. On Christianity: "the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost perversion... I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind... This Christianity is no more than the typical teaching of the Socialists." On the State, power and the jungle world of man: "Society has never regarded virtue as anything else than as a means to strength, power and order. The State [is] unmorality organized... the will to war, to conquest and revenge... Society is not entitled to exist for its own sake but only as a substructure and scaffolding, by means of which a select race of beings may elevate themselves to their higher duties... There is no such thing as the right to live, the right to work, or the right to be happy: in this respect man is no different from the meanest worm."... And he exalted the superman as the beast of prey, "the magnificent blond brute, avidly rampant for spoil and victory." ...

Awakened07

You don't have to read the entire thing; if you are allergic to any unfavorable mention of the Bible or religion, you can skip those parts.

I would also like to see page references to the parts of Origin that is racist, as I have the book on my bookshelf and could verify for myself.

I think that Darwin was a racist and that his ideology facilitated a lot of suffering.

When you read what he actually wrote, in the proper context, you'll see that he was no more a racist than other famous people at the time, and in fact often less so.

Various popular beliefs about humans during the 1800s included the beliefs that:
Whites, Blacks, American Indians, and Asians are all different species
The races are static and created by God, and should thus never be mixed
There are superior and inferior races and the superior whites have the right to dominate the inferior blacks and Indians
There are distinct delineations between the races
Different races are not related to each other
Interbreeding of races leads to degeneration
God originally created civilization and whites have stayed true to God, thus maintaining civilization, but the darker races have degenerated and lost civilization as they have become more savage and further from the word of God
Darker races are descendants of Canaan (Ham's Curse), the darker their skin the more inherently sinful they are
How, then, do Darwin's views compare to the existing views on race during his own time?
Darwin's View of Race
In contrast to the existing views on race, Darwin showed that:
People cannot be classified as different species
All races are related and have a common ancestry
All people come from "savage" origins
The different races have much more in common than was widely believed
The mental capabilities of all races are virtually the same and there is greater variation within races than between races
Different races of people can interbreed and there is no concern for ill effects
Culture, not biology, accounted for the greatest differences between the races
Races are not distinct, but rather they blend together
One issue that is commonly misunderstood about Darwin is the full title of his most famous book, On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. It is important to note here that "race" was a term that was more often used to discuss plants and animals at this point in history than it was to describe people. In fact, Darwin avoided much discussion of people in The Origin of Species and only used the word "race" a few times, in each of these cases referring to plants or animals, as in the example below.
Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable, that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races , for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil (in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the direct action of the poor soil), that they would to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock.
- The Origin of Species; Charles Darwin, 1858
It is often pointed out that Darwin frequently used the term "savages" when discussing the tribal people whom he wrote about. In his use of the term savages, however, Darwin was simply using the standard lexicon of his time; it was a term that everyone, from Popes to Presidents, used. It must also be remembered, of course, that the differences between different groups of people were really very extraordinary until basically the past 75 to 50 years. Many of the groups that Europeans came into contact with practiced cannibalism, self-mutilation, human sacrifice, infanticide, had no writing, and/or were very hostile towards people outside of their own family or tribe. Most also had no technology beyond stone tools. These are real substantial differences that were being encountered by many Europeans for the first time. They were seeking explanations for why this was the case.
Darwin traveled around the world on the HMS Beagle to some of the most remote and uncivilized places on the planet. Unlike his other European contemporaries, however, he lived among the tribal people that he came into contact with as an equal and observed their customs, instead of seeking to be treated like a superior.
Darwin's most extensive discussion of human race was put forward in his 1871 book The Descent of Man. This book has been greatly misused by opponents of Darwin because in The Descent of Man Darwin assesses all of the various ideas about race that existed at the time, presenting many ideas of other people, which he later goes on to refute. In The Descent of Man Darwin takes questions such as "Are people composed of different species?" and he puts forwards all of the arguments for each position. He puts forward the evidence and claims of those who argued in favor of the position that humans are in fact separate species, and then he puts forward his own position, which is that humans are all one species. It is quite easy, however, to takes quotes from The Descent of Man out of context and make it appear that Darwin held positions which were in fact the exact opposite of his beliefs, and this is what many opponents of Darwin have done.
What then are Darwin's views on race, as put forward in The Descent of Man?
Our naturalist would likewise be much disturbed as soon as he perceived that the distinctive characters of all the races were highly variable. This fact strikes every one on first beholding the negro slaves in Brazil, who have been imported from all parts of Africa. The same remark holds good with the Polynesians, and with many other races. It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant. Savages, even within the limits of the same tribe, are not nearly so uniform in character, as has been often asserted. Hottentot women offer certain peculiarities, more strongly marked than those occurring in any other race, but these are known not to be of constant occurrence. In the several American tribes, colour and hairiness differ considerably; as does colour to a certain degree, and the shape of the features greatly, in the Negroes of Africa. The shape of the skull varies much in some races; and so it is with every other character. Now all naturalists have learnt by dearly bought experience, how rash it is to attempt to define species by the aid of inconstant characters.
But the most weighty of all the arguments against treating the races of man as distinct species, is that they graduate into each other, independently in many cases, as far as we can judge, of their having inter-crossed. Man has been studied more carefully than any other animal, and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges whether he should be classed as a single species or race, or as two (Virey), as three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Pickering), fifteen (Bory St. Vincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawfurd), or as sixty-three, according to Burke. This diversity of judgment does not prove that the races ought not to be ranked as species, but it shews that they graduate into each other, and that it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive characters between them.
- Charles Darwin; The Descent of Man, 1871
Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in colour, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the body, &c., yet if their whole structure be taken into consideration they are found to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these are of so unimportant or of so singular a nature, that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds good with equal or greater force with respect to the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans are as different from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Feugians on board the "Beagle," with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate.
He who will read Mr. Tylor's and Sir J. Lubbock's interesting works can hardly fail to be deeply impressed with the close similarity between the men of all races in tastes, dispositions and habits. This is shown by the pleasure which they all take in dancing, rude music, acting, painting, tattoing, and otherwise decorating themselves; in their mutual comprehension of gesture-language, by the same expression in their features, and by the same inarticulate cries, when excited by the same emotions. This similarity, or rather identity, is striking, when contrasted with the different expressions and cries made by distinct species of monkeys. There is good evidence that the art of shooting with bows and arrows has not been handed down from any common progenitor of mankind, yet as Westropp and Nilsson have remarked, the stone arrow-heads, brought from the most distant parts of the world, and manufactured at the most remote periods, are almost identical; and this fact can only be accounted for by the various races having similar inventive or mental powers. The same observation has been made by archeologists with respect to certain widely-prevalent ornaments, such as zig-zags, &c.; and with respect to various simple beliefs and customs, such as the burying of the dead under megalithic structures. I remember observing in South America, that there, as in so many other parts of the world, men have generally chosen the summits of lofty hills, to throw up piles of stones, either as a record of some remarkable event, or for burying their dead.
Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes, and dispositions between two or more domestic races, or between nearly-allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that they are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man.
As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors who had these same characters.
- The Descent of Man; Charles Darwin; 1871

President Abraham Lincoln, famous for freeing the slaves, had said:

"While I was at the hotel today, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great Laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.]"
- Abraham Lincoln; Fourth Presidential Debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858

At the same time, the article I quoted is balanced, and does not hide the fact that Darwin uttered some unfavorable words about 'savages', but even his words about them were mild and non-racist compared to what other people of that time had to say (clergy, philosophers, politicians, and scientists alike).

It should be added, that even if Darwin was a racist, it wouldn't lessen the importance and correctness of his theory. Sir Isaac Newton can be said to have been quite the a**hole, and Albert Einstein was very unpopular in certain circles, but that has had no bearing on our use of their theories.

Burger Time

quietlyleaving I was not stating that there weren't any non-racist scientist. Just simply that like most people from his time he probably held the common views that blacks were less intelligent then whites. To draw a comparision to Nazism is the same as claiming that being a vegetarianism is somehow and endorsement of the Nazi's. It's just a ridiculous headline grabbing statement with very little merit. Again your blowing my mind with all this "people in the past held strange race views!" shit.

BurnTheShips

It should be added, that even if Darwin was a racist, it wouldn't lessen the importance and correctness of his theory.

That is not the point of the article in the original post, your post notwithstanding. The point is that Darwinism was connected with Nazi ideology, providing a rationale for why the more evolved "Aryans" could destroy "inferior" races with impunity, in their less evolved status they were not truly human, but subhuman-or to use the German word- "untermenschen". The basic idea that some human races are more evolved than others was revisited more recently in The Bell Curve.

I believe we are all created in Gods image.

Burn

quietlyleaving

burger

Again your blowing my mind with all this "people in the past held strange race views!" shit.

I'm sorry your poor mind is so vulnerable

BurnTheShips

I'm sorry your poor mind is so vulnerable

A new religious orthodoxy meanders hereabouts methinks.

quietlyleaving

burn

A new religious orthodoxy meanders hereabouts methinks.

I didn't get that - care to explain

Awakened07

The point is that Darwinism was connected with Nazi ideology, providing a rationale for why the more evolved "Aryans" could destroy "inferior" races with impunity

OK - all of this and more is covered in my link, but if you need to keep believing this, go ahead. You are currently connected to the Internet. Use it.

BurnTheShips

I have looked at your thread Awakened. And I am not convinced. It is a decent apologetic, but the facts remain.

Burn

If "You Think Darwin Sounds Like A Nazi, There Is A Connection"

Darwin's View of Race

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