Most of us have a misconception of what natural selection is. I know I certainly did for a long time. We think it is primarily just one thing, the strong versus the weak, the fit versus the unfit (which is what Darwin often reduced it to). That is a simplification. In reality, it is a whole combination of things, which are subject to change, including climate, food sources, and possible invasion by other species giving the strong or the fit unexpected competition and unexpected help to the weak. So if any of these circumstances change, then when the weak resist the strong, their resistance might suddenly become successful, even though they are still weak (they are weak but in a new environment now). Under natural selection, with all the circumstances which make it up, nothing is guaranteed to the strong—or to the weak. There is no final determination of fitness. The weak defeating the strong is a possibility in natural selection. Antiracism is natural selection asserting itself against the artificial selection of racism, colonialism, and genocide (artificial in part because they seek rapid change and in part because they are the product of human irrationality and a lust for a kind of power that has nothing to do with survival).
We should always keep in mind that ideas of hierarchy and racism developed in Europe long before anyone thought of evolution. Evolutionary theory and even natural selection are not inherently racist. They can be interpreted another way. Darwin did not find racism in evolution and that is because it isn’t there. He rather brought racist ideas to evolution and incorporated them into a biological process where they do not belong.
There are only three things inherent in evolutionary theory in its ideal form: 1) a belief that there is a common ancestor for all life on this planet; 2) we are all, all creatures, genetically related (‘genetic’ was used over and over by Chambers in one edition of Vestiges); and 3) the creative force of God or nature is ongoing; it did not spend itself in one burst a long time ago; life is not fixed but still in creative ferment, resulting in a diversity that is not fixed but always changing. The original evolutionists believed this was a more sublime conception of God or nature, and I think they were right. Creation does not end. For people like Chambers, Rafinesque, Erasmus Darwin, Emma Martin, and probably more, it meant that the classes of society were not final either, but open to change and improvement.
The holistic evolutionists looked at the world and saw this: Life and nature do not just produce the strong and the dominant. Nature also produces the small, the weak, the hungry, the low, the ill-fitted, the bottom. Why? Because from the viewpoint of the whole, every piece is necessary and valuable. Human beings make judgments about ranking things, but the whole (or nature) does not rank anything; everything has a legitimate place. The whole confirms the existence of the small and weak just as much as that of the strong and dominant. Neither has more importance than the other. There is no hierarchy. The struggle for life by the weak is just as valid as the struggle by the strong. An antiracist view is more true to nature and natural selection than a racist view. Evolution gives us lessons of antiracism. Making evolution racist (which is what Darwin did) is an unnatural twist of logic and the facts of nature, which is never racist.
© 2017 Leon Zitzer
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