Social Darwinism, as a direction, was formed in the 19th century. The works of the founders of the doctrine had a tremendous impact on contemporaries. Naturally, Darwin's law itself, being a large-scale scientific event, could not but affect the field of public knowledge. In England the doctrine was systematically applied to real life by Spencer and Bedggot. The latter, being a publicist, an economist, tried to use the principles on which the considered direction was built in the study of historical processes in society. And by the end of the 19th century, Spencer's ideas were assimilated by leading figures Giddings and Ward.
Social Darwinism. Key Concepts
For the entire social science of the 19th century, and especially its second half, a number of priority moments became characteristic. These key concepts were elucidated by Darwin himself. The theory that scientists followed after him became a kind of paradigm that penetrated into various areas of social thought. These basic concepts were "natural selection", "survival of the fittest", "struggle for existence". In this regard, social Darwinism acted not only as a special direction.
The categories inherent in the doctrine began to be applied andin those areas of knowledge that were initially somewhat hostile to him. So, for example, Durkheim used some of the concepts included in social Darwinism. Despite his rather radical anti-reductionism in the study of social phenomena, as well as his emphasis on the meaning of solidarity, he considered the divisions in social labor as a somewhat softened form of a certain struggle for existence.
Social Darwinism in the late 19th century
By the end of the nineteenth century, the ideas of "natural selection" went beyond the scientific sphere and became very popular in business, journalism, mass consciousness, fiction. Representatives of, for example, the economic elite, business magnates, based on the theory of evolution, concluded that they are not only lucky and talented, but are also considered the visible embodiment of victory in the struggle for existence in their particular field. In this regard, it is erroneous, according to researchers, to consider social Darwinism as a doctrine based only on biological aspects and being a simple continuation of them. It can be defined as a direction that reduces the laws of social development to the principles of natural evolution. Social Darwinism, in particular, sees the struggle for survival as a defining aspect of life. At the same time, the non-biological principles of the doctrine indicate that, in a certain sense, an old social thought has been updated and substantiated. Among all the signs of the direction under consideration, one of the mainit is considered to consider life as a kind of arena in which there is a widespread and continuous struggle, conflicts, clashes between individuals, societies, groups, customs, institutions, cultural and social types.
