Social Darwinism and the Straw Man

Jonah flies solo on the week’s first Remnant, as he tries out a format that seeks ...

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Jonah flies solo on the week’s first Remnant, as he tries out a format that seeks to provide the footnotes to some of the most commonly landed-on items from the program’s bingo card. On this first explainer, Jonah tackles the straw man and frequent leftist punching bag called social Darwinism, and whether or not such an ideology ever even existed in the first place. Do any conservatives actually believe this stuff? And how did the tables turn on libertarians to such a degree that the most laissez-faire political ideology possible ended up facing accusations of eugenic sympathies? (You can also tune in to learn why you should never trust Wisconsinites.)

Show Notes:

–The (underrated) Tyranny of Clichés

–Obama calls the GOP budget “social Darwinism”

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  1. Jim Weaver

    I like the format and hope you do more in this vein. However, although it may be impolitic, isn't Social Darwinism at some level true see https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25816925-the-evolution-of-everything

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    Jack Armstrong

    100% I want more of similar....
    (And I’m a founding member, so my vote counts more..)

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    morrill Abell

    More please

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    Troy Ault

    Jonah - feedback on the episode: I learned some things, so I liked that; but a big part of why I recommend you to conservative-curious neophytes is the approachability of your laidback rhetorical style. That is lost in this format, when we can tell you’re reading.

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      Kurt Caton

      I agree, Troy. Just not the same when Jonah reads.

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    MatthewRobin

    Jonah, I need to hear the robber baron episode.

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  6. DocHeartless

    This was a wonderful first attempt at a different type of podcast. I can see the utility for you, and I’m glad to hear that the response was overall positive. Sure, we often want to hear your thoughts on current events, but occasionally you need to challenge yourself and us with the deeper issues. Wasn’t it George Carlin that hated current event satire because it was too easy? It’s fascinating to dig deeper into these other, more enduring, issues on occasion.

    Many of the comments below are spot on, I think. It is a completely different world to read outloud versus speaking extemporaneously. This first go was a little rough in ways, but I have no doubt it will improve quickly. Having a slightly different voice for quotes is a great idea. Perhaps you could test out reading a more select set of passages and then commenting on them free form, but maybe that is too similar to your old format.

    Another thought you might play with would be to give reflective comments at the end of the podcast or on a later remnant (perhaps the ruminant). The older I get the more I genuinely appreciate the admission of nuance in thinking and modifications in past views. In fact, many of my favorite moments from the writing and podcast of the Dispatch over these last few months has been when you all have pointed out mistakes in the past. I am enthralled when you all discuss changes to previous opinions and perspectives as you’ve aged - intellectual fine bourbon, as it were. I’d be fascinated to see you cover a hot topic, then absorb the feedback or just let those older ideas percolate for a week, and then touch on them again later to argue in favor of doubling down or revising them in some way. Just a thought.

    Regarding the content of the podcast, my mind hath been blown, sir! I am a high school teacher and have taught AP European and AP World history for decades. I am chagrined to hear your perspective and notice some of my own teaching in it. You’ve given me quite the summer project as I need to go back and read Spencer, Darwin, Carnegie, Ford, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. I delight in showing my students how multifaceted history can be. Take the 30 second story and then blow it to smithereens with the artillery of complexity. This topic is tailor-made for that type of treatment. They’ll love it.

    At the same time, though, I’ve spent the last few hours reading Social Statics and find it . . . cringeworthy? I can see your perspective that Spencer may never have coined the phrase “Social Darwinism,” but there seems to be large sections of the text that discuss ideas pretty similar to the common definition. Part 4, chapter 30 is a doozy (in this open source link it’s pages 250-276: https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/273/Spencer_0331_EBk_v6.0.pdf). I love the perspective that we should look more critically at Darwin and Marx and what they, unintentionally, wrought. And I can’t wait to link the liberal supreme court to eugenics in the Buck case and others. But I’m finding some of Spencer’s ideas tough to defend. I get that defending him is not your argument. And your contention that the links between him and the phrase are not as strong as has been portrayed, and that liberals do white wash their own sins of the past, etc… is very convincing. But is it possible that many of Spencer’s thoughts, while not self-labeled social darwinism, are often accurately described as echoing its logic?

    I especially liked your connection to the robber barons of the gilded age. That bit about their average literacy is positively brilliant. We are in violent agreement in regards to free trade, creative destruction of capitalism, rising tide raises all boats, and virtually everything Adam Smith ever said or thought. You appear way more knowledgeable on these matters than me, though, so I would really appreciate a discussion on macro-economic history and inequality (in normal Queen’s English, please god). In my high school classes, I like to use the census xlsx tables dividing the country into quintiles and looking at the inflation-adjusted income of each group. The tables go back just over fifty years (https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html)

    Unless I am reading the data incorrectly or making math errors (very possible), it looks to me like the change in income of the poorest quintile increases by 39% between 1967 and 2019 ($20,134 a year to $28,084 in inflation adjusted 2019 dollars). The next quintile increases by 36% in the same period. The third increases by 55%, and the fourth increases by 79% from ‘67 to present ($79,461 to $142,501). The lower income limit of the top five percent increases by 212% ($127,513 to $270,002). I couldn’t find figures on the wealthiest 1% at the census bureau site, but in other graphs based on the census it looks to be almost a 400% increase.

    I am fairly libertarian by nature and so my inclination is to celebrate capitalism with every fiber of my being. There’s no doubt that those individuals and families in the lowest quintile can buy much more stuff with the incredible savings globalization and free trade have given us. That is an undeniable and underappreciated miracle. I love to needle my liberal friends by pointing out the annual savings Walmart grants to poor families. But I have to confess that I see a societal and political danger in this trend.

    I discuss it in class by looking at Uber and the change over time in the cab industry. Of course, Uber is a business that proves God loves us and wants us to be happy - cabs before Uber were an absolute nightmare. Yes, yes, Uber is cheaper, more reliable, more pleasurable, etc… But it also seems hard to avoid the conclusion you had definite winners: investors and the skilled elite that reaped the lion’s share of the financial reward, and then a smaller but widely diffused cost/efficiency savings on the part of consumers (which is absolutely huge given it is hundreds of millions of people and billions of financial interactions). But you also had definite losers: the substantial human cost passed along to an entire industry’s worth of workers.

    So, my questions are many:
    -- Is the economic data in the census tables correct? Or am I being hoodwinked or pulling an economic stupid in some way?
    -- If the data is correct, is it a problem? Sure, everyone is getting wealthier, but I can’t help but recall Dent and Himmelman’s excellent fact check of Biden’s speech where they discussed the Trump tax cuts. I have a hard time agreeing with their perspective that “everyone got a tax cut” and Biden is incorrect in saying that the cuts went “only corporate America and those at the very top.” They figured that the lowest quartile received $60, or .4% of after tax income, while the wealthiest 1% received $50,000 or 3.4% of income. It doesn’t seem hard for me to see that arguing this is a great deal for everyone is an attack ad on a silver platter. Incidentally, how true is the argument that it is grossly misleading to refer only to income taxes as taxes, and when you factor in sales, property, excise, and payroll taxes, the total share on income paid by economic groups is quite different than portrayed by conservatives?
    -- If this situation and its trend lines are problematic, is it an economic problem and/or a political problem? I can’t help but see disgruntlement in both the republican and democratic electorate about income disparity. I think it gets expressed differently--the problem is either brown people, “elites,” “the swamp,” racism, or whatever else. But I worry that there is bubbling disappointment with globalization and capitalism that is only helping the forces of division and magnifying our worst impulses. Could this resentment represent a threat to the very system that has generated more wealth and advance than any other in our species’ history?
    -- Even more worrying, what truth is there to the idea that growing income/wealth inequality can be politically destabilizing? It is definitely possible to overlearn lessons, but January 6 was terrifying. I can’t help but wonder how much I and my political camp are to blame for some underlying antagonism tangentially connected to that moment. You all have made this point eloquently: we found that the economic arguments were difficult to make on their merits, so we turned to the culture war and political anger-porn to win elections instead. After winning elections, our priority then became tax cuts which, while almost certainly benefiting the nation as a whole, also sowed the seeds of bitterness and powerlessness among the broader electorate.
    If we find that it simply isn’t possible to convince the broad electorate of the benefits of globalization, free trade, and tax cuts alone, should we work more to sweeten the pill somehow? I don’t mean to jump into the Hawley/Cruz cess pit by any means, but I can’t help but see their popularity at the moment. That popularity and their fund raising numbers are truly depressing. I adamantly believe enacting their ideas would be a disaster for the country, and I don't want to fight fire with fire and sacrifice core intellectual principles. There must be a way to modify our arguments somehow to both win elections and preserve the free market and its contingent growth for everyone.

    I’m sorry to write a novel, but I’ve been mulling these thoughts for weeks now. Thank you for all the amazing content!

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  7. Jason Runyan

    This was awesome! Made me smarter! Hope to hear more!

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  8. Jessica Carney

    I very much enjoyed this episode, partly because the fact of pulling from his book made it possible for Jonah to cite the sources of his assertions. I generally trust his opinions, but they are much more convincing when immediately supported by data. Interesting, informative, and compelling. Encore!

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    Epl20

    I really enjoyed the format and substance of this episode.

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    Belt

    Gonna say that this attempt wasn't very engaging. As has been said, the written word doesn't work very well in the podcast format. I'm not opposed to the motivation for this sort of podcast, but you need to try a different approach. Keep experimenting and see how it goes.

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