[lotsofpulp]

What is the definition of “social Darwinism”?

I am under the impression that for most of human history, the ability and willingness to inflict violence was what determined the social hierarchy. Would that not be the reason that almost all tribes were patriarchal?

It seems to be a very, very recent phenomenon that simply selling goods and services can elevate one in the hierarchy, due to the advent of legal systems and policing (e.g. women’s rights).

[defrost]

The social Darwinists that ran with nature red in tooth and claw and took survival of the best fitted to mean the physically fittest and most aggressively dominant win are the ones responsible for your impressions.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

They're very much a fork from the Alfred Russel Wallace / Charles Darwin theory of natural selection.

[wolvesechoes]

> I am under the impression that for most of human history, the ability and willingness to inflict violence was what determined the social hierarchy.

As most things people today believe, this is not really true, at least not in such universal way as usually implied.

> Would that not be the reason that almost all tribes were patriarchal?

There is no data to assert that.

[lotsofpulp]

>As most things people today believe, this is not really true, at least not in such universal way as usually implied.

Might makes right is a rule of nature, is it not? Native Americans didn't choose to be moved onto reservations, enslaved people didn't choose to be enslaved, and colonized cultures did not choose to be colonized. And the ones making those choices always had the upper hand.

>There is no data to assert that.

What data could there be? It's not like the male leaders are going to write governing documents that state women will have fewer rights than men because we believe they will not be able to put up a sufficient fight. But you put the facts together that it was nearly ubiquitous around the world, and women are physically weaker than men, and women would not choose to have fewer rights, then what other conclusion can be had?

[wolvesechoes]

> Might makes right is a rule of nature, is it not?

Of nature, maybe. Of human social arrangements, not really - otherwise elites would never feel the need of justifying themselves, yet they always do.

> Native Americans didn't choose to be moved onto reservations, enslaved people didn't choose to be enslaved, and colonized cultures did not choose to be colonized. And the ones making those choices always had the upper hand.

You went from social hierarchy to interaction between societies and cultures. Slaves were almost always sourced from outside the group, and by nature of slavery they were not part of social.

> But you put the facts together that it was nearly ubiquitous around the world

This is exactly the data we don't have. We simply don't know social arrangements of most tribes or cultures in human history.

Moreover, there is a huge gap between assertion that most societies in history had male leaders and rulers, and assertion that lack of merit always led to being left behind.

> what other conclusion can be had?

Using your spectacular reasoning one can similarly argue that it has to be necessary that males in all cultures live in polygamous relationships, because nature made sperm cheap, and optimal breeding strategy is to breed with as many females as possible.

And yet, for some reason, monogamy exists in patriarchal societies.

Who could have thought?!

[lotsofpulp]

>You went from social hierarchy to interaction between societies and cultures. Slaves were almost always sourced from outside the group, and by nature of slavery they were not part of social.

I thought "social Darwinism" might have also implied survival of the fittest on the society level. From the first paragraph of the wikipedia link above:

>Social Darwinism is a body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that claim to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics.[1][2] Social Darwinists believe that the strong should see their wealth and power increase, while the weak should see their wealth and power decrease.

>This is exactly the data we don't have. We simply don't know social arrangements of most tribes or cultures in human history. Moreover, there is a huge gap between assertion that most societies in history had male leaders and rulers, and assertion that lack of merit always led to being left behind.

I guess that would be true for all of human history, but I would have thought the data from the recent previous couple thousand years would suffice (from whenever there are written records). Also, to be clear, in this case, I would assume "merit" means might, right?

>Using your spectacular reasoning one can similarly argue that it has to be necessary that males in all cultures live in polygamous relationships, because nature made sperm cheap, and optimal breeding strategy is to breed with as many females as possible. And yet, for some reason, monogamy exists in patriarchal societies.

I am also under the impression that men being expected/able to "cheat" without much consequence was a common thing until recent history where women gained the right to assets in divorce.

Also, the sperm/breeding strategy does not necessarily imply a polygamous future, because humans could have been intelligent enough to understand that the long term benefits of stability from at least the veneer of monogamy far outweighs the benefits of out right polygamy (due to stability achieved by not having significant numbers of single men competing for women).

Going back to your original claim:

>It didn't arise until rise of capitalism and bourgeoise (lack of) morality. For most of human history, and among countless cultures, social Darwinism wasn't the case.

My understanding of "Darwinism" is that there exists a need for animals (all living things) to compete for resources, and hence whomever wins the competition wins the resources and hence can procreate and further the genetic line. So I would think competition between and amongst members of society would be the natural state, because we are living things, and while humans might have understood the folly of physically competing for resources (most of the time), that does not mean humans would not desire to compete for resources in other ways (especially to attract the opposite sex).