Social Darwinism, Religion, and the Political Right
No question that the secular world is serious about driving Christianity from American society. Sure, tolerance of all religions is cited as the rationale, though most realize that eliminating all religion is the unstated objective, which will come with time.
Liberals already have a replacement religion in place. For example, national local news stations now deal almost exclusively with managing the sentiments and emotions of viewers. “Let them know how they should think or feel on any moral issue” is obvious in various “news” channels under headings such as “People Making a Difference.” It’s a how-to recipe for societal reform–toward a liberal, atheistic utopia.
It’s not just the news media and Hollywood that support this vision, but also education and government, including both Democrats and Republicans. But what if the left is really successful at someday driving away all religion? Does it really want to face a political right that draws its morality from the natural world instead?
In The Right Darwin?: Evolution, Religion, and the Future of Democracy, Professor Carson Holloway argues that a future conservatism based on Darwin might be scientifically rock solid, but the darker forces within the natural order might be a blueprint for interpreting and validating less desirable human endeavor: “such authoritative conservative thinkers as James Q. Wilson and Francis Fukuyama have argued that evolutionary biology confirms the objective reality of human nature—a bedrock conservative principle—as well as religion does. Conservatives, then, need no longer insist on religious belief as a source of public morality.”
Both the Germans and Soviets during World War II provide inklings of how Darwin was adapted to militaristic societies, not that Darwinian adaptations can’t also be wholesome, if so chosen. But morality, as such, is not naturally distributed throughout the natural order, and Holloway is afraid that a human world without religion won’t fare well. Aren’t “social Darwinists” already waiting in the wings?
