How does Social Darwinism – and race – rationalize inequality?
Social Darwinism was really just an explanation for the order of things. We had to come up with an explanation for why certain Europeans had more access to power and were wealthier than others. So we use nature as an explanation for what we saw, or seem to think we saw in nature: those who were more aggressive, or more intelligent, got things, and those who weren’t got less. So that became the continuing justification for taking over lands, for slavery, for competition. That competition was good. And to the winners went the spoils. And there’s no need to feel guilt or anxiety about that, because that’s natural, it’s a reflection of nature. And to the winner go the advantages of having been a winner. I think there are many, many legacies of social Darwinism today. We don’t see how uneven the playing field is, for one. We don’t acknowledge that individuals grow up with less advantage and more advantage. We seem to think that in America we all are born with a blank slate and an equal abil
