Origin of Speciousness

April 8, 2012, 5:18 pm
Origin of Speciousness
I was unhappy with President Obama’s decision to call Republicans “social Darwinists” — not because I thought it was wrong, but because I wondered how many voters would get his point. How many people know who Herbert Spencer was?

It turns out, however, that right-wing intellectuals are furious, because … well, it’s a bit puzzling. One complaint is that some 19th-century social Darwinists were racists; well, lots of 19th-century people in general were racists, and racism is not the core of the doctrine. The other is that modern conservatives don’t literally want to see poor people die; so?

As Jonathan Chait says in the linked piece above, the real defining characteristic of social Darwinism is the notion that harsh inequality is both necessary and right. And that’s absolutely what today’s right believes — which is the point all the faux outrage about the Darwinist label is meant to obscure.