The Evolution Of Herbert Spencer

Brainpolice — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:37:00 GMT

The British philosopher Herbert Spencer was a vital player in the developement of theories of evolution in the 19th century. It's important to note that Spencer was one of the first proponents of the theory of socio-cultural evolution, and social darwinism is a more specific thing than socio-cultural evolution. The kind of evolution that Spencer talked about is broader than biological evolution and is actually not darwinian in nature, but actually closer to lamarkianism. Spencer actually proposed the concept of socio-cultural evolution a number of years prior to Darwin's release of "Origin of Species" and the method and scope of his work differs from Darwin's.

Sometimes Spencer has been unfairly mischaracterized as a proto-nazi or proto-fascist, but this doesn't betray any genuine understanding of Spencer's political views. Herbert Spencer was a radical classical liberal who could easily be construed as a proto-anarchist. To be sure, Spencer was a utilitarian of sorts, but of a different variety than his contemporaries. Spencer was an individualist utilitarian. Compared to the views of most people during the period, Spencer's early views were actually relatively egalitarian. His notions of socio-cultural evolution lead him to take an organic and historically-based view of societies, and this eventually lead him even to the point of having the chapter "The Right To Ignore The State" in his book "Social Statics", which was removed in later editions. In either case, Spencer's philosophy lead him to oppose the political norms of his day, especially the "greatest good for the greatest number" maxim.

At first, the anarchistic conclusions of his evolutionary theory was speculative in nature. Spencer speculated about social evolution necessitating a level of independance and decentralization that effectively makes the state obsolete as a social organ. In this sense, Spencer entered a period of being a "philosophical anarchist" and it is worthwhile to speculate if he may have technically counted as an anarchist at one point, despite never formally calling himself an anarchist. In either case, some of Spencer's ideas did end up influencing the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, and Proudhon's notion of spontaneous order and the social organism may at least indirectly be linked to Spencer's social evolutionary ideas in some ways. However, Benjamin Tucker later charged Spencer with drifting towards moderation and conservatism in his later years as a result of disillusionment, which Murray Rothbard retrospectively seemed to have agreed with to a degree as well.

Social evolutionary theory may have some gradualist implications, since one is working with long periods of time. To be sure, Spencer's philosophy of history is very different from Marx's. While Marx analized history through the lense of his class theory, Spencer was more broadly working within the sphere of social interaction rather than specializing in or limited to class analysis. While Spencer does speak of social organisms or social organs, he does this while remaining true to methodological individualism. Spencer analized history from the perspective of cooperation, contract and production vs. brute force, coercion and authoritarianism. Spencer favored social evolution towards a society based on contract, cooperation and production. He favored an industrial society rather than a militant one.

What understandably disillusioned Spencer later in life is that it became clear that history was not consistantly progressing in such a direction. Society was becoming both militant and industrial. Fascism and Marxism were on the rise and classical liberalism was fragmenting. Hence, Spencer's retreat into a conservative pessemism. Of course, this isn't to underwrite Spencer's earlier radicalism, which had anarchistic implications and has been influential on libertarians over the years. Spencer had some very keen insights into the nature of social interaction and the history of social organization, and he practically invented the basis for theories of socio-cultural evoltion. Hence, Spencer definitely has significance in the history of ideas.

False Realism and Utopianism

Brainpolice — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:26:00 GMT

Conservatism is a defense of the existing order or past existing orders as "natural". Any potential alternative to the existing order or to the romantisized past order is immediately brushed aside as "unnatural" and "utopian" or "idealistic". In the conservative view, all existing inequalities are "natural" in a sort of deterministic sense. The conservative strongly emphasizes nature over nurture to explain and defend currently existing or past existing conditions. On the other hand, utopian left-wing ideologies such as Marxism strongly emphasize nurture over nature and hence attribute the vast majority if not all currently existing conditions and inequalities to political, economic and cultural influences in a deterministic sense. Nothing short of a significant transformation in human nature can possibly obtain the ultimate end sought of a purely egalitarian society, and the desirability and implications of such a purely egalitarian society is alarmingly questionable upon reasonable reflection.

The conservative errs in considering the existing order or past orders to be inevitable into the future or that they can possibly sustain themselves perpetually. They tend to ignore the extent to which inequalities are the effect of influences such as state intervention and bureaucracy. The conservative tends to defend the unequitable effects of state intervention as if they came about naturally on the free market, and therefore concludes that currently existing disparaties between various groups of people are both inevitable and justified. When anyone proposes or attempts to change such conditions or the existing order in general in a significant way, the status quo is defended by the conservative. The conservative has little to no concept of the dynamic nature of society over time and fails to see the potential changes that can be made and the advantages that can be reaped. Conservatism can be seen as a very pessemistic view in a sense, particularly pessemistic towards the future.

The marxist engages in the opposite error. They blame all existing inequalities and negative conditions on the non-existant free market and then arbitrarily proclaim that it's just a phase of history that will inevitably be surpassed by a collectivistic utopia, if only all the workers magically take over the state and somehow voluntarily dissolve it. The marxist does not recognize the degree to which state intervention is the primary cause or enabler of the inequities that they have so much distain for. They put themselves foreward as being proponents of change in the right direction, but what they ultimately have to offer is more of the same: state intervention and centralization. The actual cause of the problems which they aim to solve is precisely what they propose as a solution, and therefore their "change" isn't a meaningful or beneficial one. They propose what in some ways amounts to an authoritarian heirarchy as the solution to authoritarian heirarchy or dictatorship as a solution to dictatorship.

The distinction between and reliance upon nature and nurture is often a false dichotomy. That which involves human influence is often characterized as "nurture", yet human beings are a part and product of "nature". The real question is a matter of which particular parts or aspects of "nature" are influencing other particular parts or aspects of "nature". There are some issues with the use of the term "natural" to begin with. In a certain sense, everything and whatever the current state of affairs happens to be is "natural". The only alternative to something being "natural" would be for it to not exist, unless of course one is proposing that there is some kind of supernatural realm which would still ultimately reduce to non-existance. That being said, it is definitely nonsensical to consider all present conditions and all present forms of organization to be inevitable and a permanent state of affairs. Stasis is not "natural". Organizations and organizational forms are never permanent in the grand scheme of things, so it would be more genuinely "realistic" to propose that the eventual dissolution of the existing order is "natural" and inevitable at some point.

While the conservative puts themselves foreward as a realist, they are truly nothing but a proponent of either stasis or "turning back the clock" to "the good old days", which becomes their own romantic utopia. The extent to which they see current affairs as moving in an "unnatural" direction causes them to become reactionaries, desparately trying to cling on to old traditions. On the other hand, the marxist sees the present as "unnatural" and proclaims an inevitable utopian future to be a "natural" progression. They've drawn erroneous conclusions from the basis of the hegelian dialectic, philosophy of history and social evolutionary theory. Both involve the bastardization and politicization of science as a handy rhetorical authority and a misguided appeal to either nature or nurture.

Brainpolice : Human Nature, Marxism

The Evolution Of Herbert Spencer

False Realism and Utopianism