Answer to Question #204323 in Sociology for Dikshya

Question

write a paper on 'Summary of Social Darwinism and Social Solidarity'

Answer 1

Social Darwinism is a set of ideologies proposed in the early 1800s by Charles Darwin. The ideologies resulted in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which has been helpful in the justification of specific political, economic, and social perceptions. The overall concept of social Darwinism is the belief in survival for the fittest in every ecosystem. It advocates for the philosophy of a particular category of people becoming better in society because they are innately better (Rodgers, 1972). The theory has been widely applied in supporting imperialism, Eugenics, racism, and social inequality at various periods in the past one and a half-century.

Some of the popular historical justifications by the theory include evolution and natural selection, Herbert Spenser, Survival of the fittest and Laissez-Faire Capitalism, Eugenics, and Nazi Germany. For instance, Eugenics, which Sir Francis Galton proposed, advocated for improvement in the human species through mating individuals with particular desirable hereditary characteristics. The aim is to eventually reduce human suffering through breeding out diseases, undesirable traits, and disabilities from the human population, thus making them fit to survive within the human ecosystem naturally.

Social Solidarity

Social solidarity contradicts the ideology of social Darwinism, which puts forward that only the fittest survives in the ecosystem. Social solidarity, on the contrary, advocates for interdependence between individuals in society so that they enhance the lives of each other. It is grounded on the principles of social welfare rather than individual wellbeing (Garland, 2013). An excellent example is the current world is the education system, which equips students with the knowledge to transform their lives. In the spirit of social solidarity, various corporate entities and administrations embrace specialization and division of labor. Emile Durkheim defined it in two dimensions of the theory as mechanical and organic solidarity in 1893. It is applicable in a real-life situation, as practically, no one could be complete to survive independently.