Richard Spencer

February 12, 2009

February 12th isn?t only the birthday of Honest Abe but also Racist Chuck?Charles Darwin, that is. Not that Darwin was ideologically racist or particularly cruel-hearted, mind you, but as Steve Sailer reminds us, 

Darwin didn?t get the memo about race not existing. You?ll see vast heapings of praise in the press for Darwin this week. Keep in mind, though, that if he were alive today, the same people now lauding the dead Darwin would be denouncing the living one the same way they demonized James Watson in 2007.

The political Left loves Darwin and evolution mostly as a stick with which it can whack away at Christianity (which, if it?s worth its salt, should be able to more than survive.) And the second Darwin is no longer useful for this purpose, evolutionary science will hold about as much allure for the Left as computer science.

But then, as alluded to above, Darwin is hardly a friend to Leftist ideology. For if in the egalitarian imagination, evolution began long, long before God created the heavens and earth in six days, then it came to a screeching halt around 50,000 years ago, after which nothing of importance happened genetically speaking. Keep moving, people, nothing to see here! The Left?s ardor for evolution, and the genome and much else, conflicts rather starkly with its hysteric ?anti-racism,? and related denial that human genetic differences?both between and among races?exist at all. It?s either ?You can be whoever you wanna to be!?; or ?You?re determined by society!? The notions, ?People often turn out a lot like their parents?; and ?Some groups are just more clever than others? are strictly verboten.  (Of course, the Left is also pretty sure that homosexuality is genetically determined, but that?s a different story.)

Few notice, but the subtitle to Darwin?s much-lauded The Origin of Species?Or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life?actually includes four?count ?em, four!??no, no? words or phrases in the Left?s lexicon. ?Preservation? is Ok if you?re talking about trees, but ?preservation of races?and favored races at that. Yikes! And Struggle for Life. Geez?wasn?t that the subtitle to a book Hitler wrote or something! ?Or,? ?the,? ?of,? and ?in? are mostly inoffensive, however. 

It shows the power of the ?everyone?s the same? Blank Slate ideology that Christian anti-Darwinians, Ben Stein being a notable example, argue in favor of ?Intelligent Design? as a way of ?combating racism??as if a scientific understanding of genetic differences, and the limits of the human animal more generally, leads one directly to the instigation, ?To the Gas Chamber, Go!?

Only the Conservative Movement would make arguments this stupid.   

To celebrate Darwin Day, you might want to enjoy Derb?s Takimag essay on ?What?s so scary about Darwin.? (Hint: for the ideological Left and Right, a lot!)