#social darwinism

[creature-wizard]

Toxic Individualism In Modern Witchcraft

The modern witchcraft movement is very much a product of the 20th century, and one thing it picked up from that was a pretty individualist way of thinking. This isn't all bad, since it helped normalize people being allowed to do spirituality in a way that truly resonated with them, rather than following whatever an institution prescribed for them.

But as many of us know, western individualism comes with a lot of really toxic shit, encouraging and even enshrining apathy, cruelty, and social Darwinism. This, unfortunately, is very much an attitude you occasionally see within modern witchcraft.

This is sometimes expressed through a "let 'em sink or swim" attitude. For example, you might see people bristle at the idea of warning people about dangers such as toxic plants; "well, they should know to just research this themselves, if they get hurt, that's their own faults." Never mind that most of us live in a socioeconomic environment where "natural" tends to be equated with "safe," and few people were taught any real amount of research skills. (Most people don't know how to research beyond "type a thing into Google and click the first link" or "watch a video on YouTube and follow the algorithm.")

There's this sort of idea that witchcraft and the occult is this kind of Darwinian proving ground. You're either just born having what it takes, or you're not. Supposedly, there's no need to warn people about red flags, fascist rhetoric, pseudohistory, or anything, because supposedly, the "worthy" will just be able to find their own way on their own. Anyone who doesn't make it? Anyone who ends up poisoning themselves or falling down the alt right pipeline or abused by a predator? Couldn't be helped; they were never "meant" for this path anyway. It was simply too much for them. Why, if you really think about it, it was their own faults for daring to reach above the station they were born for, anyway.

This is a completely irrational view, because it's simply not how things work. People aren't born having research skills, critical thinking skills, or knowing the difference between real history and pseudohistory; they're taught these things. And some people are statistically much less likely to receive a good education than others. There are a few people who beat the odds and end up better educated than most people in their socioeconomic status, but this doesn't mean that they were born with inherent greatness; it just means that they were curious and lucked out in finding the right materials.

As many of us also know, Victorian-era eugenicists believed that members of the upper class were just inherently better. They had the genes for intelligence and strength of will. (Yeah, that whole modern occult fixation with willpower has some dodgy origins, too.) They just ignored that whole thing where they lived in a socioeconomic system designed to keep most people in poverty. If they ever saw someone beat the system, they attributed it to that person being born exceptional for some reason. I would highly recommend that anyone who hasn't done so already watch Shaun's video, The Bell Curve, which criticizes the book by the same title that effectively tries to argue for Victorian-age eugenics, to get a better picture of this whole thing.

Toxic individualism also encourages thinking of individuals as main characters on some kind of hero's journey, where every pain they suffer and every mistake they make is a vitally important part of their journey and growth; so much so that any effort to prevent them from making mistakes or suffering harm is hindering their personal growth.

Sure, people do often gain valuable insight from their mistakes and suffering. But it's absurd to claim that this is always the best way for people to learn and grow, especially if there's a risk of serious harm for themselves or others. Certainly it's much better to learn from a friendly Tumblr post that essential oils can give you chemical burns or harm your pets than experience it first-hand. And it's much better to learn what far right rhetoric looks like beforehand so you can recognize it when you first see it, rather than get drawn into some far right belief system and perpetuate harm on vulnerable minorities for any amount of time. (This whole thing of acting like you're life's main character and other people are basically just NPCs on some hero's journey that you imagine yourself to be on is so immensely fucked up.)

And finally, if anybody out here finds themselves thinking, "but nobody should expect help from others; after all, I didn't get any!", I'm gonna tell you: it shouldn't have been that way. You didn't not get help because that's just how the world works; you didn't get help because that's how modern western socioeconomics are created to work. Toxic individualism is a construct, and it's one that we can dismantle and replace with something better.

#witchcraft #eugenics #social darwinism #spiritual eugenics #spiritual darwinism #victim blaming #individualism #toxic individualism #anti communal behavior

[sophiemariepl]

Men who view women and girls in the category of “legal/illegal” and prey on teenage girls who just crossed the age of consent in their country (be that 15, 16, 17, 18), are some of the biggest egoists on this goddamn planet.

They think only in terms of them getting legal consequences of their actions.

It doesn’t matter to them if the girl will have a trauma afterwards and battle the consequences of such a “relationship” with a much older man for the rest of her life.

#patriarchy #fxxk patriarchy #social darwinism #age of consent #save teen girls from predatory men #predatory men #in my Lisbeth Salander era #radical feminism #intersectional feminism #feminism

[persimmon13]

Here a little meme I curated instead of paying attention in class.

This debate seems rather futile to me, since I don’t agree with the idea of solitary nature being the cause of how we act, but neither so nurture. Although I’m not a fan of Darwinism per se ( with that I am more closely referring to social Darwinism, the flawed ideology that was/still is used to justify unethical practices such as eugenics and discriminatory social policies and the implementation that society should emulate natures competitive aspects, which can be detrimental and have unmoral social consequences) BUT if you take social out of Darwinism I find there is a point to be made: Darwinism underscores the importance of genetics (nature) in relation with its environment (nurture). This combination shapes the traits that are advantageous. But in the long run this debate should not be an either or dichotomy but rather a nuanced interaction between genetic factors and environmental influences, which Darwinism helps to elucidate. 

Here is a interesting article I found on this matter:

Nature vs. Nurture

#meme #funny memes #nature #nurture #charles darwin #social darwinism #psychology #psychofacts #facts #interesting #funny #lol #history #history facts #discussion #argument

[thefisherqueen]

When I have written to this man and told him that I hold him criminally responsible for the poisons which he circulates, we will have no more trouble. But it may recur. Others may find a better way. There is danger there—a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?” 

Sherlock Holmes diving headfirst into the fascist theory of social darwinism here. That is NOT what Darwin meant by survival of the fittest, it is a racist, classist and ableist reappropriation and should be killed with fire. I'm so upset

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #the creeping man #that is what you get for reading old books I get but STILL #NOT OK #social darwinism #history

[probablyasocialecologist]

Part of the seduction of eugenics, Rutherford argues, is that it stems from the seemingly worthy goal of bettering our lot. Eugenics’ Greek root words mean “good birth,” and its practice was presumed to advance the common welfare and, at times, was widely encouraged. “Until the Second World War,” Rutherford writes, “eugenics was a beacon of light for many countries striving to be better, healthier, and stronger.”

Most people are familiar with the grim apotheosis of eugenics, when the Nazi regime labeled hundreds of thousands of disabled and other supposedly undesirable individuals “Lebensunwertes Leben” (life unworthy of life) and killed them in gas chambers — all in the interest of strengthening the so-called Aryan race. Yet Rutherford reveals how eugenic ideas thrived for thousands of years before Nazi doctors’ murder campaigns. In “The Republic,” Plato proposed a utopian society in which all human breeding would be strictly controlled to yield best results. The British polymath Francis Galton, who coined the term “eugenics,” promoted Plato’s vision further in the Victorian era, calling for population control methods like keeping those he saw as unfit from reproducing. By “preventing the more faulty members of the flock from breeding,” Galton wrote, “a race of gifted men might be obtained.”

In outlining eugenics’ under-explored history, Rutherford tips over some longstanding sacred cows. He traces the eugenic lineage of IQ tests still widely administered today — tests which, less than a hundred years ago, were used to mark out “feebleminded” people for sterilization. And while Charles Darwin has been cleared of direct involvement in the Social Darwinism movement, which proclaims the biological superiority of powerful people, Rutherford notes that Darwin still held views close to his half-cousin Galton’s. “The weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind,” Darwin wrote in “The Descent of Man.” No one “will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.”

Darwin was hardly alone in his views: Teddy Roosevelt was an avid eugenics supporter, as was Winston Churchill.

As he moves closer to the present, Rutherford draws on his genetics expertise to convince readers that the concept is intellectually bankrupt. What feels freshest is his contention that eugenics is impossible to do effectively, at least at our current level of scientific advancement. A trait like intelligence, he explains, isn’t controlled by one gene or even several. It’s a product of complex interactions between hundreds of different genes, and even that is just the start: Only half of the intelligence variation between members of a population is thought to be of genetic origin, leaving ample room for other influences. “Your genome is a script,” Rutherford writes, “but the film of your life is played out in the countless forces that determine how that script is performed. Nature was never versus nurture; it is and always was via.”

#Eugenics #intelligence #social darwinism #biopolitics

[edwordsmyth]

Friedrich Engels

#friedrich engels #charles darwin #thomas hobbes #social darwinism

[zenosanalytic]

If you've ever wondered why meat-eating is so ideologically important to US Conservatives, watch this new essay by Atun-Shei films. Some truly wonderful research into the intellectual history of fascist carnivorism here, and much more besides.

#cw: Animal Death #cw: Slaughter #Atun Shei Films #Video #Video Essays #Ravenous(1999) #History #Politics #Social Darwinism #Carnivorism #Carnism #Conservatism #Fascism #Colonialism #Capitalism #Philosophy #Youtube #Wendigo #informative reblogs #appreciative reblogs

[iamafanofcartoons]

Huh? What what? Eruption Fang is a Jacques apologist?? I've seen many of his videos where he defends Whitley's character? (By many of his videos I literaly mean I only ever watched his 'Whitley is a victim too' videos because his thirst for certain characters and defensiveness towards Raven, Harriet and Cinder make me mad). But yeah! I guess I am confused by him defending Jacques, could you elaborate please?

Eruptionfang, or Cole as he's known on Twitter, is in love with the idea of emo male sociopaths who talk about moral grayness.

A sociopath has no morals...has no virtues...but they are portrayed in media as charismatic....and people are brainwashed on that trope.

Vergil from Devil May Cry, Vicious from Cowboy Bebop, and Adam Taurus.

All three are trenchcoated men wielding katanas who are emo and hurt other people, often innocent people, and betray others for their personal goals.

Everyone attempts to defend their actions, all 3 of them.

But we first see Adam raiding train, wanting to kill all the passengers...and we see Blake stopping him.

Every single Adam Apologist began accusing Blake of being a war criminal and just as bad as Adam ...simply for standing in his way.

What's more, these people Blame Blake for Adam's actions.

So Sexism and Homophobia is something you'll find a lot of on EruptionFang's discord server...if he has one. He is basically another Adel Aka or Hero Hei...I'm not touching his channel, but word is that he IS a defender of child molester Vic Micnogna, who was Qrow Branwen's first VA.

Now as for Cinder Fall? Basically she's trying to kill the female main protagonist...for Cole, that's enough to put her in his good book.

Raven Branwen? We first meet her after her tribe wiped out a village just to plunder it...Raven began talking about Social Darwinism...which RWBY Critics ascribe to, and EruptionFang was furious to find that Raven's tribe was not as strong as her, because it meant that Raven was using social darwinism as an excuse to do what she wanted.

I like that about RWBY....they cut open "gray morality" and show how it is just an excuse for bad people to do whatever they want...and the fact that women oppose these people upset a lot of men and women who hate the female protagonists and love the male authority-fascist villains.

He loves Harriet because she's basically "Good soldiers follow orders" and we see in The Clone Wars and RWBY how blindly following orders causes problems.

As for Jacques? Despite him slapping Weiss, Cole decided that it had to be Weiss' fault for the slap, and that anything Weiss said against him, from stealing the family legacy, to changing his name as a con-man? Was Weiss needing to be disciplined.

He was also furious at Jacques Death because he wanted Jacques to get a redemption.

You'll see that RWBY Critics HATE the idea of female characters like Ilia Amitola or Emerald Sustrai getting redemptions, but cis white male characters like Adam or Ironwood or Jacques not getting redemptions is apparently character assassination.

At the end of the day, RWBY has more good POC characters than bad...and more POC live to see another day.

Which is ironic considering that the villains that the RWBY Critics defend so passionately are all white men in positions of authority.

This love of fascism, the military industrial complex, unchecked power, and men being allowed to commit whatever atrocities as long as it can be called "tough decisions" or "morally gray" is what led me to have a disdain for RWBY Critics who claim to "care about the show and want it to be better"

No...they want the show to lionize their white male character over the women protagonists.

And when people claim to be "Fixing" RWBY? Their focus is on hurting female main characters by stripping away their characteristics and overfocusing on men...especially the bad ones.

Because between female main characters with optimism vs male authority figure antagonists?

A criticism channel will always choose the male.

And I pity them.

In the meantime, take these to use to block out EF's channel.

#eruptionfang #eruption fang #adam taurus #james ironwood #raven branwen #social darwinism #moral ambiguity #morally gray #rwby #rwby character analysis #rwby discussion #jacques schnee

[victor-rookwood]

"Power is the pivot on which everything hinges. He who has the power is always right; the weaker is always wrong."

- Niccolò Machiavelli

#ask victor rookwood #social darwinism

[harpagornis]

#video essay #racism #the lion king #judaism #signal boost #signal boosting #social darwinism #Youtube

[apushdril]

love when i lose aobut 100 followers immediately after making a beautiful post. the weak shriveling up into dust. Thats called darwin

#apush #us history #history memes #gilded age #herbert spencer #social darwinism #dril

[quotesfromall]

Because Victorians believed in the inevitability of progress, they insisted that the dinosaurs must necessarily be inferior - why else would they be extinct? So the Victorians made them fat, lethargic, and dumb

Michael Crichton. The Lost World

#citation neded #social darwinism #steminist #academic politics #michael crichton #crichton #crichton 1995 #1995 #the lost world #science fiction #alternative facts #paleoart #paleoartist #iguanodon

[cegodaltonico]

"A ideologia do controle populacional é simplesmente uma combinação de dois fatos: (i) as pessoas produzem a riqueza econômica e o poder militar; (ii) os abastados têm famílias menores. Como bons darwinistas eles [os ricos] perceberam que a população com a maior taxa de fertilidade iria finalmente substituir a população com a menor taxa. A partir dessa percepção atemorizante nasceu a ideia do controle populacional."

E. Michael Jones

#citações #citação #citas #controle de natalidade #birth control #darwinismo #social darwinism #e. michael jones #libido dominandi #wealthy #poors #ricos #pobres

[apenitentialprayer]

Empire as Salvation (and Religion as Threat) in the Mindset of Churchill

- Arthur Herman (Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age, pages 95, 96, 97, 97, 98-99). Italics original. Bolded emphases added.

#history #Winston Churchill #Mahatma Gandhi #imperialism #culture #social darwinism #atheism

[majokko120]

To Struggle, or Not to Struggle

A faith equipped with absolute Truth can elevate its followers beyond hostilities of the here and now, beyond the realist materialist survival of the fittest. One can experience defeat, loss, humiliation, even worse, and assign little to no importance to it.

Let them take my cloak. Let them take my honor. What does it matter?

Unlike the nihilist who ends up in existential doubts--for if nothing matters.. self-destructive thoughts crowd his mind--the believer of such a faith has the liberty to do the right thing regardless of personal loss in the here, in the temporary.

Let them take my cloak, but give me life eternal.

Of all the great religions only Christianity offers absolute Truth that transcends the current world. Both the Mohammedan and the Rabbinic intend to possess and dominate this decaying, this fleeting world.

Only the Christian approach, therefore, can afford to shun the Darwinian incentive to strive against others, seeking instead to strive against our own, fallen, nature, in pursuit of eternal communion with the Highest of the Highest.

#social darwinism #transcendentalism #theology #philosophy #Christianity

[theunbeholden]

Ideology: The Overman

This is a chapter from the third book in the trilogy, The Way of the Sith Part 3: Doctrine of Action and Hierarchy. Ideology: The Overman Without further ado here are the principles and aspiration of the Overman or Ubermensch. 1. “The power to make a law for oneself, the ‘power to refuse and not to act when one is pressed to affirmation by a prodigious force and an enormous tension.’” This…

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#Atheism #betterment #Darwinism #empowerment #perfection #Power #self-evolution #social darwinism #ubermensch