soul magazine-anthems

Have your say.

I  just had a conversation with some Nietzche fans, and discovered that they and he were social darwinists. Is anyone here a social darwinist? Why?

Personally, I think that darwinism is true; that species adapt to their environment over time. However, I believe that as humanity we have created our own environment. In todays environment, which was created by today’s elite and powerful, how can you see what is going on as beneficial on an evolutionary scale?

Fact: the more educated people are, the less children they have. At least in areas where everyone has equal oportunity to education, the smartest people are being weeded out of the genepool relatively speaking.

Our new capitalist system also shows that the rich and wealthy don’t necessarily have more children. Assuming equal oportunity, we’re weeding out the successful and productive.

Going more into Nietzche, violence, to be successful, takes the forms of organised combat in wars. Social darwinism sees this as a test of one group against the other, and the superior group wins. But between nations and races, there is less genetic difference than between the members of those nations or races. All violent forms of social darwinism are relatively unproductive if you want a stronger species.

I don’t need to remind people of the racism of the founder of social darwinsim, Herbert Spencer.

Even if you believe that although the rich and educated are not reproducing enough, or that everyone else is reproducing too much, that the important thing is that the rich and educated are getting ever greater amounts of power so that if there ever is a crisis, their genes will be those that represent humanity and everyone else until then is an expendable workforce, there are still problems. Our neo-capitalist system rewards not the intelligent and creative, but the persistent, conformist, and I daresay ideologically idiotic and uncritical people the most.

My conclusion is a few points:

1. In short we’re breeding sheep to a few idiotic shepherds.
2. Our genetic differences are so varied and so widespread that there is still the capacity for serious examination of how society should be structured to reflect what is best for the species in any group and place so that warfare is absolutely insane.
3. That we create our own environment to adapt to.
4. There is no reason to assume that a more democratic and socialist system would be any worse for the evolution of humanity. Indeed, I personally believe that as a group we could make more rational decissions about the kind of people the species should become than we do as separate individuals… creating the kind of environment that people would adapt to that would actually be better for the species.

People like to blame war on religion, race, and culture. In reality war is caused by money. War occurs when the cost to kill your neighbour is cheaper than the cost to buy what you want from them.

Are there really inalienable rights that human beings have? If you do not have the money to defend your freedom, does it really deserve to be yours? If we define money as value, then if you provide little value to your society do you deserve to exist at the expense of taking away value from other cultures?

Society often defines “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as inalienable rights. That is fine, but if you ask 100 random people accross the world you will get 100 different definitions for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Is driving your pick up truck considered a liberty and pursuit of happiness when the cost to get the oil includes so much damage to the environment and bloodshed? These inalienable rights are open-ended generalizations that only have meaning to the culture defining them.

To understand the cause of war we need to calculate the expense of a life. Again it goes back to money. The cost depends on your ability to defend what you have that is valuable to others. If you own nothing of value, then no one is going to bother you. Think of a cow. Most of us do not think twice about the enormous pain and suffering we have put dozens (hundreds?) of cows through only because they provide value. Since the cow can not defend it’s own value, it is killed and consumed.

The same extension applies to humans. Those cultures that provide value to others, like mid-east, have to be able to defend themselves . Otherwise human beings do not think twice about committing genocide so they can continue their “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. If you and I don’t have “feelings” for cows, why should we have feelings for humans that cause us more harm by not allowing us to be free? In fact people often feel more anger for humans since they are capable of reason, but do not use it. It’s not the cows fault it had to be killed, but it is the human’s fault for being killed.

I do not know who is right or wrong, but these are just some ideas you won’t ever hear on TV, but really explain the heart of the matter. Freedom is all in the eye of the beholder. To put it another way, “One man’s genocide is another man’s freedom fight “.

It’s conclusion, everything is relative and needs to be judged from the perspective of those it affects. Those with more money (value) will always control those with less value. This is a fact that history has taught us for thousands of years.

People like to blame war on religion, race, and culture. In reality war is caused by money. War occurs when the cost to kill your neighbour is cheaper than the cost to buy what you want from them.

Are there really inalienable rights that human beings have? If you do not have the money to defend your freedom, does it really deserve to be yours? If we define money as value, then if you provide little value to your society do you deserve to exist at the expense of taking away value from other cultures?

Society often defines “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as inalienable rights. That is fine, but if you ask 100 random people accross the world you will get 100 different definitions for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Is driving your pick up truck considered a liberty and pursuit of happiness when the cost to get the oil includes so much damage to the environment and bloodshed? These inalienable rights are open-ended generalizations that only have meaning to the culture defining them.

To understand the cause of war we need to calculate the expense of a life. Again it goes back to money. The cost depends on your ability to defend what you have that is valuable to others. If you own nothing of value, then no one is going to bother you. Think of a cow. Most of us do not think twice about the enormous pain and suffering we have put dozens (hundreds?) of cows through only because they provide value. Since the cow can not defend it’s own value, it is killed and consumed.

The same extension applies to humans. Those cultures that provide value to others, like mid-east, have to be able to defend themselves . Otherwise human beings do not think twice about committing genocide so they can continue their “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. If you and I don’t have “feelings” for cows, why should we have feelings for humans that cause us more harm by not allowing us to be free? In fact people often feel more anger for humans since they are capable of reason, but do not use it. It’s not the cows fault it had to be killed, but it is the human’s fault for being killed.

I do not know who is right or wrong, but these are just some ideas you won’t ever hear on TV, but really explain the heart of the matter. Freedom is all in the eye of the beholder. To put it another way, “One man’s genocide is another man’s freedom fight “.

It’s conclusion, everything is relative and needs to be judged from the perspective of those it affects. Those with more money (value) will always control those with less value. This is a fact that history has taught us for thousands of years.