From: "Chris McDonald" <chris.mcdonald-AT-llcc.cc.il.us>
Subject: Re: Darwin etc
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 09:39:38 -0600


Hello all,
Maybe I missed it somewhere in the "free and frank" exchanges about Darwin
and survival of the fittest -- but it seems strange that no-one has offered
up Kropotkin's thesis (although maybe Chuck or Brian mentioned this)...that
the mjority of competititon that goes on is INTER SPECIES..... for the niche
in the environment, rather than INTRA SPECIES (to "eradicate" the "weak"
elements). From this it follows that the most succesful animals are those
that have learned to cooperate together in ever more complex fashion....ie
US.


The Huxley type application of Darwin to social contexts...and down to
individual situations is so far removed from even Darwin's ideas (at least
as I understand them) as to make the association in name only. Now, some
discussion of the way in which crude social darwinist thought/phrases
prevades the current political/economic language and actions is perhaps
worth looking at more.


Once again sorry if I missed this point somewhere along the line
Chris

"And man is appealed to, to be guided in his acts not merely by love which
is always personal, or at best tribal, but by the perception of his oneness
with each human being.  In the practice of Mutual Aid, which we can trace to
the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find posisitve and undoubted
origins of our ethical conceptions: and that we can affirm that in the
ethical progress of man, mutual support - not mutual struggle -has had the
leading part.  In its wide extension, even at present time, we also see the
best guarantee of a still loftier evolution"
Kropotkin "Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution"