[MD] social darwinism?

[ralp manfred]

       dmb says: many things, among which...
-Basically, social darwinism is what 
-you get when the concept of natural selection is applied to human --society. 
-[...]It's the attitude that 
-says the poor are poor because they're unfit, unable to adapt. 
      yes, this is historically what was called social darwinism, and by the stigma with which it is handled, clearly we all agree that it amounted to quite a bothersome fantasy. 
   the idea, you claim, is that "Basically, social darwinism is what you get when the concept of natural selection is applied to human society." 
  i believe "basically" to be understating. this was its historical meaning, but we have no deep reason to believe that the concept of evolution was applied correctly to society. in fact, we have much reason, given its obvious shortcomings, to doubt the merits of the reasoning behind it. notice i did not requote dmb in the underlined portion. i think also, that it is possible that the oh so common expression 'natural selection' is misunderstood, misinterpreted, and thus misconceived. so perhaps they applied 'natural selection' to society, yet knew nothing of true cultural evolution.
    in this case, an argument against "social darwinism" (in its historical meaning) is an argument against what you yourself call "a particular set of doctrines about the nature of social level evolution". doctrines are constructions of men, and are more than shown to be fallible. so please, argue all you wish against it, i will argue along side with you, but i will never admit that the application of evolutionary principles has been applied to society correctly. we are just now only beginning to understand the evolutionary principles manifest in cultural evolution. The difference between biological evolution and cultural evolution clearly exist, and i do not believe any scientist/philosopher truly expects there to be a one to one correspondence between bioevolutionary theory and any emerging memetic/social evolutionary theory. 
   in this age, feel free to look around, noticing that it is the material drives of the upper class, and the manifest (induced) drives which this made possible for the middle class that is creating the present unsustainable culture, consuming itself faster than it can self replenish. this tactic is quite unfit for survival. curious that perhaps the more diligent and altruistic of the world were considered to be the ones that were "unfit". curious; i think they are farther along on a better path. you may claim that the argument is that they are "unable to adapt". but i ask, is a parasitic organism, which relies on a host for survival (as the upper class relies upon the lower classes) considered more fit than a self sustaining host? no. they are not in competition as organisms, it is a moot notion, since they do not compete for a common resource. the one is the resource for the other, which simply struggles then to feed two. it is necessary to realize the classes as
 social/cultural phenomena, and not biological phenomena (though dependant upon it, it is emergent more importantly), thus the cultural resources can be reconsidered, not as the requirements of physical well being, but as the value definitions and array of qualities;  money, information, beneficial relationships/positions.
  you ask what this has to do with the moq. any thing that has to do with evolution has to do with the moq. but the historical argument about socially darwinistic ideologies, are simply a lesson in "bad quality", by which i mean, a dynamic cultural element making a collective value distinction, and it not working out too well. 
 you ask,
"If it doesn't fit, as I'm saying, then what can we say about evolution at the social level?"
    we can say as much as we wish. we need only be critical audience to ourselves in parallel.

  ralph



 			
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