Thursday, April 17, 2008

Darwinism and Red Rover


On Tuesday we played "Red Rover," which, at the time, I thought was just a game, but if you look further, it is more of a Darwinian playtime activity. Red Rover is a game where two teams call on the other team to have one of their team members "come over" and try to break through the human chain of linked hands. In most cases, the teams prey on who they think would be least likely to break through the chain. On our first turn to call on the other team, we called on Cat, for no reason other than the fact that we thought since she is little (not in a negative way, love ya Cat!) and wouldn't be able to break through our chain. Well, Cat surprised us and kept running through the chain and broke through, stealing one of our members and taking them back to her team. Cat was able to break through, but Robert (love ya too, man) proved to be the weakest link (according to Bump and his facebook picture captions), which is surprising since it is the opinion of many that men are the stronger sex, especially in the case of Cat vs. Robert since Robert is clearly bigger. Darwin states, “Man can act only on external and visible characteristics: Nature…cares nothing for appearances” which shows that humans are concerned with the physical (whether showing strength, status, etc) and therefore perform selection, but based on different means than Nature. By definition, Social Darwinism is a hypothesis that competition among all individuals, groups, nations or ideas drives social evolution in human societies. The term is an extension of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, where competition between individual organisms drives biological evolutionary change (speciation) through the survival of the fittest. My opinions about Social Darwinism are mixed. On one hand, I think that Social Darwinism does drive evolution because I think that people are and should be constantly striving to better their lives and the lives of their families, but I don’t necessarily think that money should be the driving factor. I think that the basic people should do all they can to satisfy Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but even when those needs are fulfilled goals should not be considered reached. Maslow's Hierarchy: I think that people have survived because of several different factors: Some people are lucky, some people work hard enough to survive, and some people have enough money to ensure they survive. I am not saying that money ensures survival but I think it is true, but unfortunate, that some people who have more money than others happen to get better medical treatment and more treatment because of their ability to afford it. I am not saying that a rich person necessarily gets better treatment at a hospital, but I do understand that there are certain medical bills that some people can afford and others just can’t. I think that is the most crushing factor of social Darwinism, and also the reason I refuse to accept that it is a fact of life. (But I won’t go on since the whole medical thing is a political debate and I don’t want to go into that). Anyways, back to Red Rover—I think that Red Rover was proof that the theory is wrong because, since it is a game of strength and speed, you cannot decide who will survive (or win) based on their social status. Since we do not know everyone’s socioeconomic background, we simply chose on size and who we thought would be fun to watch run (aka it was funny to watch Bump try to break through the chain). Darwin writes in “The Origin of Species” about a country that has new life forms come into it, and the disturbance it causes, which I think can relate to the fact that someone running from the opposite team to your team and breaking through, causes a disturbance to your team, but strengthens their team: “If the country were open on its borders, new forms would certainly immigrate, and this would likewise seriously disturb the relations of some of the former inhabitants.” Darwin wrote about medical advancements and their effects on lower class families in “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex:” “Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. ... We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.” He talked about sympathy, and in my opinion made it clear that reason shouldn’t trump sympathy and compassion.
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