Document Analysis Paper – William Graham Sumner, On Social Darwinism William Graham Sumner’s is one of the more famous statements regarding Social Darwinism in nineteenth-century America. Social Darwinists adopted Charles Darwin’s evolutionary hypothesis of natural selection from his On the Origin of Species (1859) and applied it unscientifically to the social and economic spheres of human socieities
Document Analysis Paper – William Graham Sumner, On Social Darwinism
William Graham Sumner’s is one of the more famous statements regarding Social Darwinism in nineteenth-century America. Social Darwinists adopted Charles Darwin’s evolutionary hypothesis of natural selection from his On the Origin of Species (1859) and applied it unscientifically to the social and economic spheres of human socieities. Natural selection, according to Darwin, is the natural process of struggle between different species of plant or animal in relation to a common natural environment or ecosystem, which permits a species with traits favorable for adaptation in that environment to thrive, and those without such traits to become extinct.
Social Darwinsts, such as Sumner, found these evolutionary ideas of natural superiority highly attractive because they seemed to justify why certain individuals or groups within human socieites were more successful than others. These Socal Darwinist ideas became embodied in the popularthough oversimplifiedphrase, survival of the fittest (a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer). Further, they argued that government must not interfere in social and economic relations. Government must not provide assistance to the poor, women, immigrants, etc., because that would be contrary to nature and every person is responsible for his or her fate. Conversely, Social Darwinists argued that large American corporations should not be constrained by laws, regulations, and taxes because that would restrict the power of successful individuals to thrive.
Your goal for this paper is to explain Sumner's views on social inequaltiy. Here are some questions to think about…
What do you think is motivating Sumner to argue that certain individuals are more suited to thrive and adapt than others?
What are his views on the poor or on women? Why does he view them as inferior? Why is he mistaken in that assessment?
In what ways are his ideas supporting the dominant trend of free market competition in industrial capitalism in the late-nineteenth century?
In what ways do his Social Darwinist views reflect racial attitudes of whites towards blacks in the late-nineteenth century?
How are Sumner’s views different from Darwin’s regarding species and individuals? How are they unscientific?
William Graham Sumner’s is one of the more famous statements regarding Social Darwinism in nineteenth-century America. Social Darwinists adopted Charles Darwin’s evolutionary hypothesis of natural selection from his On the Origin of Species (1859) and applied it unscientifically to the social and economic spheres of human socieities. Natural selection, according to Darwin, is the natural process of struggle between different species of plant or animal in relation to a common natural environment or ecosystem, which permits a species with traits favorable for adaptation in that environment to thrive, and those without such traits to become extinct.
Social Darwinsts, such as Sumner, found these evolutionary ideas of natural superiority highly attractive because they seemed to justify why certain individuals or groups within human socieites were more successful than others. These Socal Darwinist ideas became embodied in the popularthough oversimplifiedphrase, survival of the fittest (a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer). Further, they argued that government must not interfere in social and economic relations. Government must not provide assistance to the poor, women, immigrants, etc., because that would be contrary to nature and every person is responsible for his or her fate. Conversely, Social Darwinists argued that large American corporations should not be constrained by laws, regulations, and taxes because that would restrict the power of successful individuals to thrive.
Your goal for this paper is to explain Sumner's views on social inequaltiy. Here are some questions to think about…
What do you think is motivating Sumner to argue that certain individuals are more suited to thrive and adapt than others?
What are his views on the poor or on women? Why does he view them as inferior? Why is he mistaken in that assessment?
In what ways are his ideas supporting the dominant trend of free market competition in industrial capitalism in the late-nineteenth century?
In what ways do his Social Darwinist views reflect racial attitudes of whites towards blacks in the late-nineteenth century?
How are Sumner’s views different from Darwin’s regarding species and individuals? How are they unscientific?
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