Social Darwinism

[PoetPhilosopher]

Social Darwinism - Wikipedia

This thread, which I put in a non-debate category, got me thinking:

The importance of social skills in pursuing a career, and how careers and social skills by themselves don't always create lasting legacy

I've been thinking that people who see the world in a way like that of Social Darwinism, may see benefit in highly competitive work environments that don't necessarily put teamwork on top nor are highly nuanced. However, the idea of Social Darwinism tends to be discredited, and I feel it's for good reasons. In the past, it has lead to harmful beliefs involving racism, etc, etc.

I still think there is use in distinguishing between a person with an attitude so self-defeatist they can no longer do much of anything, and the highly successful person, though (usually). I often feel that the attitudes between the two might be different, which helps one better achieve success, and one not achieve success.

On the other hand, I feel that sometimes, the whole system in certain isolated corners can be corrupt too, leading some talented and ambitious people to starve, and some people who don't really deserve fame and fortune to great fame and fortune.

Another difference I often see between rich people and people who aren't rich, is that the people who aren't rich "may" have a higher tendency to spend like a millionaire. I've seen millionaires that do the same, but it's still not exactly the same, as one might be making $30,000 a year and spending almost like they have a million dollars, on some items, and one might be making a million dollars a year and spending as if they had a million dollars, on some items. But so far, it has been rare for me to see someone with 1 million dollars that spends like someone with 10 million dollars - outside of a few college age people in the news who got rich quickly by having the luck of becoming sports stars, and ended up broke later and quickly.

My main concern is if you follow no ideas in Social Darwinism and avoid all of those ideas completely, that you'll think "the system is corrupt" and kind of develop a self-defeatist attitude, where in competitive work environments, it may have the strong potential to work against you. Which shows that I believe the system isn't entirely random or 100% corrupt at all times.

On the other hand, Social Darwinism is like a line with two ends, with one starting position that may have some benefits, and one ending position that as you progress further and further toward it, seems like a dark bottomless pit. A bottomless pit I may tread a little too closely to at times, admittedly.

To further compare and contrast a person who is prone to success and a person who isn't though, I will outline what I might think of two Game Designers. In corner one, you have a Game Designer who is making a platform video game that will take them a year or two to make, and tries to make it competitive with today's and yesterday's products. In the second corner, you have someone who knows to make their game competitive with what they think or envision their competitors' games might be like in one or two years from now, or from seeing Previews of future games. In the latter case, you might have a person with a more successful attitude and mindset, who might have a higher likelihood of success, whether or not they achieve it due to all the other variables.

I also feel that so long as mindsets can change success rates, provided they can - that it means the whole system isn't entirely random or corrupt.

So as to whether one should take on a Social Darwinism approach, or an approach that is friendly to all and possibly completely non-competitive and not striving toward greater either, I'd say neither - but I do acknowledge that at times, my pursuits lead me too close to being considered as subscribing to Social Darwinism.

Credit to @Ella S. for bringing up the subject.

Also, I've seen where changes of my mind and thinking and mindset, have "I felt" changed the outcome of life and situations around me. But in my experience, usually it's total changes, like epiphanies in which your mind changes so much, it's hard to even take it in, then you try painfully hard to be different or change things as well, sometimes thinking new ideas and goals which wouldn't normally make sense, and then things, even a few "dead-end" looking situations, can sometimes change. But I don't feel it's easy at all to completely "force" such a thing, though not always impossible either.

Anyway, all this is just IMO, and my take on the subject.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

On the other hand, I feel that sometimes, the whole system in certain isolated corners can be corrupt too, leading some talented and ambitious people to starve, and some people who don't really deserve fame and fortune to great fame and fortune.

I have been lamenting over this for awhile. My sister is an idiot and believes things that are inappropriate for her field. She's a physician's assistant, makes six figures a year, and yet believes in a lot of pseudo-science, unproven treatments, snake oils, she even believes our thoughts alone bring illness and health. She thinks you can use the Force or whatever and heal a torn cartilage with just your mind, and most embarassing was when she asked me if I thougbt this thing she read about online, a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide, would cure her genital herpes.
But me, I'm smarter than her, more capable and talented, unwilling to do many illegal and unethical things she has done in her practice, and without belief in things that do not belong in the medical field, and going disabilities might just be where I end up (my shoulder has been very messed up) due to my extreme difficulties in getting a job.

 

[Stevicus]

Social Darwinism - Wikipedia

This thread, which I put in a non-debate category, got me thinking:

The importance of social skills in pursuing a career, and how careers and social skills by themselves don't always create lasting legacy

I've been thinking that people who see the world in a way like that of Social Darwinism, may see benefit in highly competitive work environments that don't necessarily put teamwork on top nor are highly nuanced. However, the idea of Social Darwinism tends to be discredited, and I feel it's for good reasons. In the past, it has lead to harmful beliefs involving racism, etc, etc.

I still think there is use in distinguishing between a person with an attitude so self-defeatist they can no longer do much of anything, and the highly successful person, though (usually). I often feel that the attitudes between the two might be different, which helps one better achieve success, and one not achieve success.

On the other hand, I feel that sometimes, the whole system in certain isolated corners can be corrupt too, leading some talented and ambitious people to starve, and some people who don't really deserve fame and fortune to great fame and fortune.

Another difference I often see between rich people and people who aren't rich, is that the people who aren't rich "may" have a higher tendency to spend like a millionaire. I've seen millionaires that do the same, but it's still not exactly the same, as one might be making $30,000 a year and spending almost like they have a million dollars, on some items, and one might be making a million dollars a year and spending as if they had a million dollars, on some items. But so far, it has been rare for me to see someone with 1 million dollars that spends like someone with 10 million dollars - outside of a few college age people in the news who got rich quickly by having the luck of becoming sports stars, and ended up broke later and quickly.

My main concern is if you follow no ideas in Social Darwinism and avoid all of those ideas completely, that you'll think "the system is corrupt" and kind of develop a self-defeatist attitude, where in competitive work environments, it may have the strong potential to work against you. Which shows that I believe the system isn't entirely random or 100% corrupt at all times.

On the other hand, Social Darwinism is like a line with two ends, with one starting position that may have some benefits, and one ending position that as you progress further and further toward it, seems like a dark bottomless pit. A bottomless pit I may tread a little too closely to at times, admittedly.

To further compare and contrast a person who is prone to success and a person who isn't though, I will outline what I might think of two Game Designers. In corner one, you have a Game Designer who is making a platform video game that will take them a year or two to make, and tries to make it competitive with today's and yesterday's products. In the second corner, you have someone who knows to make their game competitive with what they think or envision their competitors' games might be like in one or two years from now, or from seeing Previews of future games. In the latter case, you might have a person with a more successful attitude and mindset, who might have a higher likelihood of success, whether or not they achieve it due to all the other variables.

I also feel that so long as mindsets can change success rates, provided they can - that it means the whole system isn't entirely random or corrupt.

So as to whether one should take on a Social Darwinism approach, or an approach that is friendly to all and possibly completely non-competitive and not striving toward greater either, I'd say neither - but I do acknowledge that at times, my pursuits lead me too close to being considered as subscribing to Social Darwinism.

Credit to @Ella S. for bringing up the subject.

Also, I've seen where changes of my mind and thinking and mindset, have "I felt" changed the outcome of life and situations around me. But in my experience, usually it's total changes, like epiphanies in which your mind changes so much, it's hard to even take it in, then you try painfully hard to be different or change things as well, sometimes thinking new ideas and goals which wouldn't normally make sense, and then things, even a few "dead-end" looking situations, can sometimes change. But I don't feel it's easy at all to completely "force" such a thing, though not always impossible either.

Anyway, all this is just IMO, and my take on the subject.

The main problem with Social Darwinism is the tendency to escalate beyond the level of "friendly competition." If a sporting event or other kind of competition can remain friendly, cooperative, on a level playing field, with rules applied evenly and refereed fairly, then it could work well.

But if one side wants to win so badly that there's cheating, sabotage, or other forms of chicanery that may go unanswered/unaddressed, then it could escalate beyond just a "friendly match." Moreover, if the "winners" display poor sportsmanship, such as gloating, rubbing it in, and/or forcing the "losers" into slums like in some kind of Dickensian misery, then it could lead to political instability, crime, and possibly riots/insurrection.

In a competitive world, if an individual can't make it on their own, then they may seek out other individuals and form cooperatives or coalitions to give themselves leverage and position. They might form gangs, clubs, and/or political parties and try to build up their numbers. Sometimes, it can even reach a national level, where national governments might try to gain advantage for their countrymen and shut out competition from foreign sources. Bismarck did this in the 19th century, where he utilized the resources of the state to bolster, protect, and support German companies over their foreign competition. (Some say we should do this in the United States, so that American companies can gain an advantage.) Ultimately, this would lead to the tribalism and nationalism which brought us to the World Wars, which is invariably the end result of what happens when societies embrace Social Darwinism.

As a consequence, Western liberal societies decided to soften up and offer a more reformed, more benevolent system which favored social welfare and the rights of the lower classes. For a time, this worked well, until certain upper class types decided that, unless they can abuse the workers and rub their noses in it, it just isn't fun anymore - so they went with Ronald Reagan and back in the direction of Social Darwinism. As a consequence, we're seeing higher levels of intolerance than we did 30-40 years ago, and there's no reason to believe that it won't get any worse. There are some who ostensibly fear that America could turn fascist, and it's all due to our wanton embrace of capitalism and Social Darwinism.

 

[RestlessSoul]

We're at our best as a species when we co-operate. All our greatest achievements have been collective.

 

[Ella S.]

To me, it sounds like you're limiting your investigation to people who are already successful and trying to rationalize that success based on their personal qualities.

Modern capitalism thrives off of the idea that anyone can be a millionaire if they just work hard enough, but it's not really true. Most millionaires were born into wealth. There are some people who become millionaires in their life, but they're the exception to the rule. They're more of a fluke in the system than anything at this point.

As I mentioned in my last post, I don't think that's an excuse to develop a self-defeatist attitude and I don't think it means we can't try to make the best with what we have. While you're never 3 months away from being a billionaire, you're always 3 months away from being homeless. It's quite easy to destroy your life, but it's not so straightforward to become successful.

Now, that said, I agree that we can improve our chances of success. We should certainly take the actions most likely to lead to long-term benefit.

The problem is that you seem to think that people who become successful do so as a direct consequence of personal ability, but there is no causative relationship there. Personal ability is neither necessary for success, given the amount of successful people that are lazy and inept, nor is it sufficient for success, given how prevalent ability really is and how rarely the most capable among us actually achieve success.

In essence, this is a form of survivorship bias. You're missing the bigger picture when you focus only on people with ability who have become successful. That out of the way, I'm glad that you seem to be side-stepping the resulting victim blaming that I usually see this fallacy paired with in this context, though, and that you can admit that people can fail through no personal fault of their own. I think that's just a small step away from realizing that people can succeed through no personal fault of their own, too.

When you do that, you might start to recognize something. The portion of people who succeed truly through some personal virtue of their own is a very small subset of successful people. The people who fail through no personal fault of their own is a much larger subset of unsuccessful people; if you're being honest and perceptive, you will find many people who are struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck that are more capable than those in power.

I don't think it makes sense to look at that and say that the system isn't arbitrary or corrupt. I'll agree that it isn't random; the natural world we live in follows its own strict physical laws and everything we see is a product of those. It is chaotic, though, in the sense of chaos theory. Slightly different starting conditions, including factors completely outside of your control, may lead to dramatically different outcomes.

We can still plan to the best of our abilities and follow our plan, but we can do that without expecting ourselves to succeed. We can focus on performing the right actions which will make our goal more likely to manifest, but we have to give up the emotional investment we place in that goal because that's setting ourselves up for failure, disappointment, and heartache.

All of that aside, I think "success" is a terrible goal to have, anyway. The only rationalizations for pursuing success ultimately come from passion and ego. When you achieve it, you're probably only going to feel fulfilled for a brief moment before you fall back into feeling like you need to be even more successful. It's a terribly self-destructive way to live.

I think you would be better off pursuing something like peace or contentment, which you don't need success to achieve. The trick to living well isn't gaining more; it's needing less.

 

[Ella S.]

The main problem with Social Darwinism is the tendency to escalate beyond the level of "friendly competition." If a sporting event or other kind of competition can remain friendly, cooperative, on a level playing field, with rules applied evenly and refereed fairly, then it could work well.

But if one side wants to win so badly that there's cheating, sabotage, or other forms of chicanery that may go unanswered/unaddressed, then it could escalate beyond just a "friendly match." Moreover, if the "winners" display poor sportsmanship, such as gloating, rubbing it in, and/or forcing the "losers" into slums like in some kind of Dickensian misery, then it could lead to political instability, crime, and possibly riots/insurrection.

In a competitive world, if an individual can't make it on their own, then they may seek out other individuals and form cooperatives or coalitions to give themselves leverage and position. They might form gangs, clubs, and/or political parties and try to build up their numbers. Sometimes, it can even reach a national level, where national governments might try to gain advantage for their countrymen and shut out competition from foreign sources. Bismarck did this in the 19th century, where he utilized the resources of the state to bolster, protect, and support German companies over their foreign competition. (Some say we should do this in the United States, so that American companies can gain an advantage.) Ultimately, this would lead to the tribalism and nationalism which brought us to the World Wars, which is invariably the end result of what happens when societies embrace Social Darwinism.

As a consequence, Western liberal societies decided to soften up and offer a more reformed, more benevolent system which favored social welfare and the rights of the lower classes. For a time, this worked well, until certain upper class types decided that, unless they can abuse the workers and rub their noses in it, it just isn't fun anymore - so they went with Ronald Reagan and back in the direction of Social Darwinism. As a consequence, we're seeing higher levels of intolerance than we did 30-40 years ago, and there's no reason to believe that it won't get any worse. There are some who ostensibly fear that America could turn fascist, and it's all due to our wanton embrace of capitalism and Social Darwinism.

I want you to know that I found this post beautifully and succinctly put. In my opinion, it is an incredibly salient and ever-important point.

I would add that this level of extreme competition causes us to forget why the earth's biomass is dominated mostly by humans and ants, and why apex predators like wolves and lions are so effective. As social species, cooperation has allowed us to adapt better to the complex chaos that life throws at us. Working together, we can leverage one another's strengths to become stronger as a whole than we could ever be as individuals. Our ancestors knew this when they hunted big game in packs.

Focusing on individual development at the exclusion of cooperation will, paradoxically, often mean short-term gains at the cost of immense long-term losses.

As I always say, the greatest crimes come from a desire for excess, not out of necessity.