Monday, September 19, 2011

Darwin ella Darwinisma: Darwinisma í Sovjet: Ein rættleiðing til Eivind Ortind Simonsen (2).


Hetta er mítt triðja aftursvarandi innlegg til royndina hjá ateistinum og liminum í ‘Gudloysi’, Eivind Ortind Simonsen, at afturvísa viðgerðini hjá mær og øðrum, um sambandið millum Sovjet og darwinismu. Í hesum innlegginum viðgerið eg pástandin hjá Eivind, at Darwin millum elstu kommunistarnar og í Sovjet, ikki var annað enn iconi, sum breyt vísindina frá skapanarsøguni. Við øðrum orðum, pástandin, at Marx, Engels og teirra eftirfylgjarir hildu hátt um Darwin men ikki um ástøðið. 

Hetta førir sjávsagt til aðrar pástandir hjá Eivind, sum tildømis: at darwnisma einki hevði at siga í Sovjet og heldur ikki var á skúlagátt. Men hatta goyma vit til ein komandi triðja part í røðini 'Ein rættleiðing til Eivind Ortind Simonsen'. 

Innleggi hesuferð verður heldur langdrigi, eftirsum eg framleggi hópin av keldum, í grundgeva mótvegis skeivu pástandunum hjá Eivind.
Vænti tí ikki, at ein og hvør lesari, fer at hætta sær at grava seg ígjøgnum nógva lesnaðin; men tilfarið verður so á netinum hjá einum og hvørjum at lesa.
Haldið ikki, at eg takið munnin ov fullan, um eg sigi, at eg havi grundgivið (við keldum) fyri, at darwinisma var bæði framkomin og ávirkin í Sovjet og millum marxistarnar, frá Marx, Engels og líka til 1940ini.


Men lat okkum byrja við at endurgeva nakað av tí aftursvarið, sum Eivind hevur framlagt:

Eivind skrivar (blogginum ‘Gudloysi’):

Feilurin hjá Høgna er, at hann ikki skynir mun millum darwinismu og Darwin…Tað er tískil alneyðugt at duga at skyna mun millum persónin Darwin og vísindaligu ástøðina hjá honum, sum vit nevna darwinisma. Høgni Johannesen dugir ikki at skyna mun, men hann er fyri so vítt umskyltur, tí hann hevur sín vavgreyt at arbeiða út frá, og úrslitið er har eftir.

At Marx og Stalin dámdu, at ástøðin hjá Darwin kundi tulkast sum ein uppgerð við tann einkarrætt átrúnaður inntil tá hevði havt, tá tað kemur til at forklára lív, er hvat tað er. Tað merkir ikki, at Marx og Stalin dámdu darwinismuna ella tóku undir við henni. Eg kann sum gudloysingur uttan at blunka siga, at tað er nógv av orðunum hjá Jesus eg persónliga kann taka undir við. Tað ger meg ikki til ein kristnan, líka so lítið sum Stalin blívur ein darwinist av, at hann dámdi sumt av tí Darwin framførdi. Við hugsanarháttinum hjá Høgna Johannesen er tað beint øvugt: dámar tú okkurt, so dámar tú alt; kanst tú taka undir við onkrum, so tekur tú undir við øllum.

Høgni Johannesen vil eisini vera við, at tað vóru hugsanirnar hjá Darwin sum blivu vísindaligi kjølurin undir kommunismuni. Hendan skrøna er ofta hoyrd fyrr, men hon tekur ikki reiðuliga hædd fyri, at kommunisman sá dagsins ljós 11 ár undan bókini hjá Darwin.Origin of Species kom út í 1859, meðan kommunistiska manifestið bleiv skrivað í 1848. Hvussu bókin hjá Darwin skal hava ávirkað hendingar 11 ár undan hon kom út gevur bert meining í famøsa vavgreytinum hjá Høgna Johannesen. Í veruliga heiminum gevur slík hugsan onga meining.

Eg kenni ongan tekst frá Marx ella Engels, har teir siga seg vera darwinistar. Eg kenni hópin av tulkinginum av teirra orðum, har teirra tilsipanir til Darwin verða útlagdar sum um, at teir vóru grótharðir darwinistar. Hesar útleggingar koma allar sum ein frá simplistiskum kristnum, sum ynskja at geva Darwin ábyrgdina fyri ræðuleikunum hjá kommunistunum. Hesar Simplicio typur hava ikki annað enn sínar kreativu tulkingar at vísa á, men tíverri so virkar hendan simpla og snævurskygda søgufalsan sera sannførandi á onnur trúgvandi.

Høgni svarar

Eftir at hava skriva tvey heil innlegg og rúgvuvís av stytri aftursvarum, undir viðmerking, so undrar tað meg at henda seinna paragraffin hjá Eivind, sigur so mikið sum at Eivind, onkursvegna ikki letur orð míni siva inn. Eivind bólkar meg sum ein í pástendur, at darwinisma var vísindaligi grundarsteinurin í Sovjet áðrenn 1964. Hetta havi eg ongantíð sagt. Harnæst roynir hann at upplæra meg í síðuvinklum og sub-evnum, sum ongan beinleiðis tráð hava við evnið á upplegginum at gera, men annars eru góð ískot. Sum tildømis at darwinisman sjálv er farin ígjøgnum mikla menning, ella at Marx, Engels og Stalin ikki vóru darwinistar um teir ikki góðtóku darwinismuna í tess fullu mynd, harí eg sjálvandi spyrji: ‘góðtóku darwinismuna nær’, eftirsum darwinisman hevur broytt seg ígjøgnum tíðirnar. 

Tað tykist fyri mær, sum um Eivind pástendur at Darwin ikki var annað enn eitt icon, sum kommunistarnir tóku til sín, tó hesir útihýstu og vrakaðu darwinismuna. Hetta verður fokusi í hesum innlegginum.

Fyri at argumentera fyri hesum og øðrum av sínum pástandum, pástendur Eivind, at honum ikki tørvar at gera brúk av keldum ella sitatum (namesdropping). Ístaðin sigur hann seg hava eina so frammumskarandi góða vitan um veruleikan, og at henda vitan grundgevur fyri, at honum ikki nýtist at fara í søguna og grundgeva fyri sínum útsøgnum. Veit ikki um hetta enn einaferð snýr seg um Eivindsa nýtslu av ‘hugflogismu’, tað er tá ‘ynskihugsan’ ella ‘radikal skeptisisma’, heldur enn fakta sleppa frammat; ein áskoðan til útgreinan av hendingum og evnum, sum Eivind sigur seg halda fast uppá.

Hesin framferðarhættur kann tó ikki góðtakast, ikki frá mínari síðu í hvussu er. Heldur ikki kann eg góðtaka, at Eivind dregur sítt útgangstøði frá Wikipedia og einari grein úr Weekend Avisen. Wikipedia er góð upplagskelda um ein ynskir at leita sær til aðrar betri keldur og bøkur, men sjálvt Wikipedia er ikki góðtikin sum ein álítandi kelda, og um Eivind kortini dittar sær at basera heila sítt kjak og sínar útsøgnir uppá slíkt, so er hann vitandi um, at hann vælvitandi loyvir sær, at loypa tað risiko, at villeiða hópin av lesarum.

Fyri at koma aftur til evni, so sigi eg ikki, at Darwin var grundarsteinurin í Sovjet, ella at kommunistar ongantíð vóru negativur yvirfyri Darwinismu. Tað sum eg sigi er, at Darwin og Darwinisma góvu tann neyðuga íblásturin fyri kommunismuna. So spurningurin vit fyrst mugu spyrja er: fyri kommunistarnir, var Darwin bara eitt icon, alt ímeðan hesir vrakaðu darwinismu (soleiðis skilji eg Eivind)?

Tað sum eg fari at vísa á í hesum innleggið er, at Marx og Engels ikki bara ‘dámdu’ Darwin og sóu Darwin sum eitt brot við skapanarsøguna. Men at Marx og Engels hildu væl um og eisini góðtóku skrivingina og ástøði Darwins, í samband við menning í nátturuni og eins væl og at hendan menning í nátturuni, gjørdist fyrimyndin í stríðnum móti teimum kúgandi kreftunum, í tátíðar heimsamfelagnum.

Vit fara at byrja við Marx og Engels og arbeiða okkum síðani ígjøgnum ymiskar Sovjet tekstir, líka inn í stýriskipan Stalins.

Engels skrivar til Marx í 1859:
“Darwin, by the way, whom I'm reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done. Never before has so grandiose an attempt been made to demonstrate historical evolution in Nature, and certainly never to such good effect. One does, of course, have to put up with the crude English method.”

Marx skrivar til Lasselle í 1861:

“Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle. One does, of course, have to put up with the clumsy English style of argument. Despite all shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, ‘teleology’ in natural science is not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained.”

Útsøgnirnar omanfyri, vísa á fleiri týdningarmiklar faktorar: 1) Darwin er eitt icon, 2) hansara skriving gevur íblástur, 3) hansara skriving greiðir frá menning í nátturuni (and certainly nevur to such good effect), 4) Darwin gerð av við skapanarsøguna, 5) gagnar søkini hjá Marx.
Í næstu brotunum er týðiligt at Marx og Engels rokna Darwin sum meira enn ein framherja ímóti religión og eitt icon, ístaðin útgreina og viðgera teir ástøði hansara og seta Darwin upp móti øðrum vísindaligum áskoðanum frá hansara samtíð. Her vísir Marx í einum brævið Engels á bókina hjá P.Trémaux, Origine et Transformations de l’Homme et des autres Êtres, Paris 1865, sum eitt møguliga betri ástøði enn Darwin á onkrum økið:
“A very important work which I shall send on to you (but on condition that you send it back, as it is not my property) as soon as I have made the necessary notes, is: ‘P.Trémaux, Origine et Transformations de l’Homme et des autres Êtres, Paris 1865. In spite of all the shortcomings that I have noted, it represents a very significantadvance over Darwin. The two chief theses are: croisements [crossings] do not produce, as is commonly thought, variety, but, on the contrary, a unity typical of the espèces.The physical features of the earth, on the other hand, differentiate (they are the chief, though not the only basis). Progress, which Darwin regards as purely accidental, is essential here on the basis of the stages of the earth’s development, dégénérescence, which Darwin cannot explain, is straightforward here; ditto the rapid extinction of merely transitional forms, compared with the slow development of the type of the espece, so that the gaps in palaeontology, which Darwin finds disturbing, are necessary here. Ditto the fixity of the espece, once established, which is explained as a necessary law (apart from individual, etc., variations). Here hybridisation, which raises problems for Darwin, on the contrary supports the system, as it is shown that an espece is in fact first established as soon as croisement with others ceases to produce offspring or to be possible, etc.
In its historical and political applications far more significant and pregnant than Darwin. For certain questions, such as nationality, etc., only here has a basis in nature been found. E.g., he corrects the Pole Duchinski, whose version of the geological differences between Russia and the Western Slav lands he does incidentally confirm, by saying not that the Russians are Tartars rather than Slavs, etc., as the latter believes, but that on the surface-formation predominant in Russia the Slav has been tartarised and mongolised; likewise (he spent a long time in Africa) he shows that the common negro type is only a degeneration of a far higher one.

Her síggja vit tvey onnur evnir koma til sjóndar: 1) at darwinisma fyri kommunistar, hevði eina søguliga og eina politiska ávirkan og tulking; 2) at ástøði førkar seg inn í rasupolitik og áskoðan, tildømis at tann vanligi svarti afrikumaðurin vísir seg at minnið mentur enn aðrir. Hetta seinni skal vísa seg at blíva ein størri trendur í Evropa. Ein genetisk og rasuniðrandi hugsan sum seinni fer at undirleggja seg svørt, jødar og breka til útskilna og eisini týningar. Hetta gjørdist (mær vitandi) tó ikki ein trendur millum russar, tó at tankin var til staðar.

Seinni far pípan tó eitt heilt annað ljóð, tá Engels í einum brævið til Marx, játtar at hann hevur ásannað, at tað vantaði eitt hvørt, í undanfarna ástøðinum í bókini ‘Origine et Transformations de l’Homme et des autres Êtres’, og enn einafer, verður Darwin upphevjaður:

“Ad vocem Trémaux. When I wrote to you, I had admittedly only read a third of the book, and that was certainly the worst part (at the beginning). The second third, the critique of the schools, is far better; the third, the conclusions, very bad again. The man deserves credit for having emphasised the effect of the ‘soil’ on the evolution of races and logically of species as well more than had previously been done, and secondly for having worked out more accurate (though, in my view, still very one-sided) views on the effects of crossing than his predecessors. In one respect, Darwin is also right in his views on the effect crossing has in producing changeas Trémaux incidentally tacitly acknowledges, in that, when it suits him to do so, he also treats crossing as a means of change, even if ultimately as one that cancels itself out. Similarly, Darwin and others have never failed to appreciate the effect of the soil, and if they did not especially emphasise it, this was because they had no notion of how the soil exerts an influence — other than that fertility has a favourable and infertility an unfavourable effect. And Trémaux is little the wiser about that either. The hypothesis that, as a general rule, the soil favours the development of higher species to the extent that it belongs to more recent formations, sounds exceedingly plausible and may or may not be correct; however, when I see the ridiculous evidence with which Trémaux seeks to substantiate it, of which 9/10 is based on erroneous or distorted facts and the remaining 1/10 proves nothing, I cannot but extend the profound suspicions I have of the author of the hypothesis to the hypothesis itself. But when he then goes on to declare that the effect of the soil’s greater or lesser age, modified by crossing, is the sole cause of change in organic species or races, I see absolutely no reason to go along with the man thus far, on the contrary, I see numerous objections to so doing.”


At Engels var ein tilhengari av ástøðinum hjá darwin, er týðiligt út frá skrivinum: ‘The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man’ (1876)
“Darwin has given us an approximate description of these ancestors of ours. They were completely covered with hair, they had beards and pointed ears, and they lived in bands in the trees. First, owing to their way of living which meant that the hands had different functions than the feet when climbing, these apes began to lose the habit of using their hands to walk and adopted a more and more erect posture. This was the decisive step in the transition from ape to man…”
Rætt er tó, at kommunistarnir høvdu tó ávísar trupuleikar við Darwinismuni, serstakliga tess samanknýtan av djóra og menniskjasamfelagið; Marx skrivar:

“As to Paul’s lively narration of his adventure with Mlle Rover, it has tickled Engels and my humble self. I was not at all astonished at his failure. He will remember that, having read her preface to Darwin, I told him at once she was a bourgeois. Darwin was led by the struggle for life in English society — the competition of all with all, bellum omnium contra omnes — to discover competition to [...] as the ruling law of ‘bestial’ and vegetative life. The Darwinism, conversely, considers this a conclusive reason for human society never to emancipate itself from its bestiality.”


Her uppstendur ein týdningarmikil faktorur. Eitt sum plágar Marx og Engels er at darwinisma ikki skilir menniskjan frá djórunum og vandin stendst av hesum, at samfelagið ferð at avspegla djórasamfelagið, har tann sterkasti yvirlivir og veiki bukkar undir. Tó at nógvir kommunistar vóru darwinistar og ástøði um ‘menning’ var galdandi undir annaðhvørt eini darwinistiskari áskoðan ella ikki, so var tilknýti menniskjans til djórasamfelagi (menniskjan=djór) ein áskoðan, sum ikki passaði seg inní kommunistisku samfelagsfilosofiðina, og tí gjørdist ein áhaldandi pína í nakkanum.

Her skrivar Engels í 1875:
“1) Of the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution, but Darwin’s method of proof (struggle for life, natural selection) I consider only a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact. Until Darwin’s time the very people who now see everywhere only struggle for existence (Vogt, Búchner, Moleschott, etc.) emphasized precisely cooperation in organic nature, the fact that the vegetable kingdom supplies oxygen and nutriment to the animal kingdom and conversely the animal kingdom supplies plants with carbonic acid and manure, which was particularly stressed by Liebig. Both conceptions are justified within certain limits, but the one is as one-sided and narrowminded as the other. The interaction of bodies in nature – inanimate as well as animate – includes both harmony and collision, struggle and cooperation. When therefore a self-styled natural scientist takes the liberty of reducing the whole of historical development with all its wealth and variety to the one-sided and meager phrase “struggle for existence,” a phrase which even in the sphere of nature can be accepted only cum grano salis, such a procedure really contains its own condemnation.[...]
Engels, gerð greitt at hann tekur undir við menningarlæruni, men hevur trupuleikar við ávísum fyribrigdum Darwins, hann kallar tó ikki hesi fyribrigdir fyri ósonn, men ‘a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact’.Tað tykist tó ikki, at Engels hevur havt lívfrøði í huganum í hesum samanhengi, men heldur tað ringu ávirkan fyribrigdini ‘tann sterki yvirlivir’ og ‘stríði um at yvirliva’ kunnu hava á eitt samfelagsrák.
Engels, sum sjálvur kallar seg darwinist, loypir tí ikki á darwinismu sum heild, men teir sokallaðu ‘yvirklassa darwinistarnar’ (bourgeois Darwinists), sum eru kapitalistarnir:
“For Germany, where false sentimentality has done and still does so much damage, it would not fit; it would be misunderstood, sentimentality perverted. In our country it is hatred rather than love that is needed – at least in the immediate future – and more than anything else a shedding of the last remnants of German idealism, an establishment of the material facts in their historical rights. I should therefore attack – and perhaps will when the time comes – these bourgeois Darwinists in about the following manner:
The whole Darwinists teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes’s doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes [from Hobbes’s De Cive and Leviathan, chapter 13-14] and of the bourgeois-economic doctrine of competition together with Malthus’s theory of population.”

Lesarin eigur her at býta merki í, at hetta ikki er mín tulking av Marx og Engels, kommunistar seinni í tíðini, staðfesta og grundgeva fyri at var hetta var bæði áskoðanin og tilgongdin í uppruna kommunismunar. Hetta sæst í skrivingini hjá Uranovsky í 1938:

“Marx establishes the following premises : the theory of creation is destroyed, as is shown by the natural sciences (geognosis) ; nature develops, it is in process of becoming even before the appearance of man ; the development of nature goes spontaneously, is immanent, selfgenerated ; the organic world (and man) arose through generatio æquivoca ; life has not always existed as Thomson, Helmholtz and other representatives of the "absurd doctrine" of panspermy uphold. It follows that Marx understands this generatio æquivoca not as being the conception and birth of higher organisms without the intermediary of seed and parents (the mediæval form of this doctrine of generatio æquivoca, spontanea aut primaria), but in the sense of self-movement, selfdevelopment, i.e. in the sense which is in accordance with the chemical theory of the origin of life and the evolutionary theory of the origin of man, established within a decade and a half by Darwin's theory.
On the plane of philosophy and world outlook Marx was interested in the new works which showed that "the whole French school of physiologues and microscopists", led by Robin, had spoken against Pasteur, Huxley, etc., in favour of "generatio æquivoca". Marx in connection with the materialist conception of history follows science which represents the basis for his philosophical and historical views. From this aspect Marx welcomed the appearance of Darwin, whose teaching, with all its deficiencies, gave a "natural-historical basis" to his own views. Darwin gives him a new and sharp weapon with which to criticise the teachings of Malthus which are closely connected with a number of economic and political questions.
The discussion of Darwin's work is deepened during Marx's lively discussion with Engels on the work of Trémaux. In this author Marx approves of, first, the effort to determine the Darwinian chance individual changes, since with Trémaux progress arises from necessity "on the basis of the periods of development of the globe", and secondly Trémaux's effort to give a natural historical basis to such social categories as nationality by advancing the idea of the influence of the soil.”

Men tað stegðar ikki við Marx og Engels. Ávirkanin av Darwinismu heldur fram líka til byrjanina av Sovjet.

Ein listi av vísindafólkið í Russlandi í 1910-14, nevnir í hvussu er ein, í ber heitið Darwinist:

"In the natural sciences, Russia could boast such men as K. A. Timiryazev, then engaged in his immortal research into vegetable photosynthesis; the famous selectionist and geneticist I. V. Michurin, and the Darwinian zoologists M. A. Menzbir and A. N. Severtsov. In the field of geology and mineralogy, the Russian natural sciences were represented by the famous crystallographer E. F. Fyodorov; by the "father of Russian geology," A. P. Karpinsky, and by the founders of geochemistry, A. E. Fersman and V. I. Vernadsky".

Um hesa tíðina, í 1909 skrivar Anton Pannekoek eina einastandi grein (Marxism and Darwinism) um sambandið millum Marx, Kommunismuna og Darwin.

Pannekoek er óvikandi sannførdur um, at Socialisma og Marxisma eru á somu bylgjulongd sum darwinisma. Hann útgreinar og afturvísir eisini teimum argumentum sum tá eru frammið, har í darwinisma verður nýtt sum eitt tól ímóti Marxismu. Hann viðgerð tann vandan sum darwinisma hevur ført samfelagi út, í samband við imperialismu og kapitalismu; men útgreinar eisini at hesi samfeløg hava feiltikið ástøðið hjá Darwin um tann ‘sterka og veika’ og yvirført hetta út í praksis, alt meðan bardagin millum tann ‘sterka og veika’, einki hevur við tann skipaðu kapitalismuna og imperialismuna at gera. Her forsvarar Pannekoek darwinismuna sum eitt ástøðið sum koyrir felags við tilhengarum av Marx og Engels (hetta er eitt heldur langt brot niðanfyri):
 “Two scientists can hardly be named who have, in the second half of the 19th century, dominated the human mind to a greater degree than Darwin and Marx. Their teachings revolutionized the conception that the great masses had about the world. For decades their names have been on the tongues of everybody, and their teachings have become the central point of the mental struggles which accompany the social struggles of today. The cause of this lies primarily in the highly scientific contents of their teachings.
The scientific importance of Marxism as well as of Darwinism consists in their following out the theory of evolution, the one upon the domain of the organic world, of things animate; the other, upon the domain of society. This theory of evolution, however, was in no way new, it had its advocates before Darwin and Marx; the philosopher, Hegel, even made it the central point of his philosophy. It is, therefore, necessary to observe closely what were the achievements of Darwin and Marx in this domain.
If we turn to Marxism we immediately see a great conformity with Darwinism. As with Darwin, the scientific importance of Marx’s work consists in this, that he discovered the propelling force, the cause of social development. He did not have to prove that such a development was taking place; every one knew that from the most primitive times new social forms ever supplanted older, but the causes and aims of this development were unknown.
Thus, both teachings, the teachings of Darwin and of Marx, the one in the domain of the organic world and the other upon the field of human society, raised the theory of evolution to a positive science.
In doing this they made the theory of evolution acceptable to the masses as the basic conception of social and biological development.
Darwinism served as a tool to the bourgeoisie in their struggle against the feudal class, against the nobility, clergy-rights and feudal lords. This was an entirely different struggle from the struggle now waged by the proletarians. The bourgeoisie was not an exploited class striving to abolish exploitation. Oh no. What the bourgeoisie wanted was to get rid of the old ruling powers standing in their way. The bourgeoisie themselves wanted to rule, basing their demands upon the fact that they were the most important class, the leaders of industry. What argument could the old class, the class that became nothing but useless parasites, bring forth against them? They leaned on tradition, on their ancient divine rights. These were their pillars. With the aid of religion the priests held the great mass in subjection and ready to oppose the demands of the bourgeoisie.
It was therefore for their own interests that the bourgeoisie were in duty bound to undermine the “divinity” right of rulers. Natural science became a weapon in the opposition to belief and tradition; science and the newly discovered natural laws were put forward; it was with these weapons that the bourgeoisie fought. If the new discoveries could prove that what the priests were teaching was false, the “divine” authority of these priests would crumble and the “divine rights” enjoyed by the feudal class would be destroyed. Of course the feudal class was not conquered by this only, as material power can only be overthrown by material power, but mental weapons become material tools. It is for this reason that the bourgeoisie relied so much upon material science.
But in Germany things were entirely different, and Haeckel correctly answered Darwin that in Germany the Darwinian theory met with an enthusiastic reception. It so happened that when Darwin’s theory made its appearance, the bourgeoisie was preparing to carry on a new attack on absolutism and junkerism. The liberal bourgeoisie was headed by the intellectuals. Ernest Haeckel, a great scientist, and of still greater daring, immediately drew in his book, “Natural Creation,” most daring conclusions against religion. So, while Darwinism met with the most enthusiastic reception by the progressive bourgeoisie, it was also bitterly opposed by the reactionists.

Darwinism versus Socialism

Darwinism has been of inestimable service to the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the old powers. It was therefore only natural that bourgeoisdom should apply it against its later enemy, the proletarians; not because the proletarians were antagonistically disposed to Darwinism, but just the reverse. As soon as Darwinism made its appearance, the proletarian vanguard, the Socialists, hailed the Darwinian theory, because in Darwinism they saw a corroboration and completion of their own theory; not as some superficial opponents believe, that they wanted to base Socialism upon Darwinism but in the sense that the Darwinian discovery, – that even in the apparently stagnant organic world there is a continuous development – is a glorious corroboration and completion of the Marxian theory of social development.
Yet it was natural for the bourgeoisie to make use of Darwinism against the proletarians. The bourgeoisie had to contend with two armies, and the reactionary classes know this full well. When the bourgeoisie attacks their authority, they point at the proletarians and caution the bourgeoisie to beware lest all authority crumble. In doing this, the reactionists mean to frighten the bourgeoisie so that they may desist from any revolutionary activity. Of course, the bourgeois representatives answer that there is nothing to fear; that their science but refutes the groundless authority of the nobility and supports them in their struggle against enemies of order.
At a congress of naturalists, the reactionary politician and scientist Virchow assailed the Darwinian theory on the ground that it supported Socialism. “Be careful of this theory,” he said to the Darwinists, “for this theory is very nearly related to the theory that caused so much dread in our neighboring country.” This allusion to the Paris Commune, made in the year famous for the hunting of Socialists, must have had a great effect. What shall be said, however, about the science of a professor who attacks Darwinism with the argument that it is not correct because it is dangerous! This reproach, of being in league with the red revolutionists, caused a lot of annoyance to Haeckel, the defendant of this theory. He could not stand it. Immediately afterwards he tried to demonstrate that it is just the Darwinian theory that shows the untenableness of the Socialist demands, and that Darwinism and Socialism “endure each other as fire and water.”
Let us follow Haeckel’s contentions, whose main thoughts re-occur in most authors who base their arguments against Socialism on Darwinism.
Socialism is a theory which presupposes natural equality for people, and strives to bring about social equality; equal rights, equal duties, equal possessions and equal enjoyments. Darwinism, on the contrary, is the scientific proof of inequality. The theory of descent establishes the fact that animal development goes in the direction of ever greater differentiation or division of labor; the higher or more perfect the animal, the greater the inequality existing. The same holds also good in society. Here, too, we see the great division of labor between vocations, class, etc., and the more society has developed, the greater become the inequalities in strength, ability and faculty. The theory of descent is therefore to be recommended as “the best antidote to the Socialist demand of making all equal.”
The same holds good, but to a greater extent, of the Darwinian theory of survival. Socialism wants to abolish competition and the struggle for existence. But Darwinism teaches us that this struggle is unavoidable and is a natural law for the entire organic world. Not only is this struggle natural, but it is also useful and beneficial. This struggle brings an ever greater perfection, and this perfection consists in an ever greater extermination of the unfit. Only the chosen minority, those who are qualified to withstand competition, can survive; the great majority must perish. Many are called, but few are chosen. The struggle for existence results at the same time in a victory for the best, while the bad and unfit must perish. This may be lamentable, just as it is lamentable that all must die, but the fact can neither be denied nor changed.
We wish to remark here how a small change of almost similar words serves as a defence of capitalism. Darwin spoke about the survival of the fittest, of those that are best fitted to the conditions. Seeing that in this struggle those that are better organized conquer the others, the conquerors were called the vigilant, and later the “best.” This expression was coined by Herbert Spencer. In thus winning on their field, the conquerors in the social struggle, the large capitalists, were proclaimed the best people.
Haeckel retained and still upholds this conception. In 1892 he said,
“Darwinism, or the theory of selection, is thoroughly aristocratic; it is based upon the survival of the best. The division of labor brought about by development causes an ever greater variation in character, an ever greater inequality among the individuals, in their activity, education and condition. The higher the advance of human culture, the greater the difference and gulf between the various classes existing. Communism and the demands put up by the Socialists in demanding an equality of conditions and activity is synonymous with going back to the primitive stages of barbarism.”
The English philosopher Herbert Spencer already had a theory on social growth before Darwin. This was the bourgeois theory of individualism, based upon the struggle for existence. Later he brought this theory into close relation with Darwinism. “In the animal world,” he said, “the old, weak and sick are ever rooted out and only the strong and healthy survive. The struggle for existence serves therefore as a purification of the race, protecting it from deterioration. This is the happy effect of this struggle, for if this struggle should cease and each one were sure of procuring its existence without any struggle whatsoever, the race would necessarily deteriorate. The support given to the sick, weak and unfit causes a general race degeneration. If sympathy, finding its expressions in charity, goes beyond its reasonable bounds, it misses its object; instead of diminishing, it increases the suffering for the new generations. The good effect of the struggle for existence can best be seen in wild animals. They are all strong and healthy because they had to undergo thousands of dangers wherein all those that were not qualified had to perish. Among men and domestic animals sickness and weakness are so general because the sick and weak are preserved. Socialism, having as its aim to abolish the struggle for existence in the human world, will necessarily bring about an ever growing mental and physical deterioration.”
These are the main contentions of those who use Darwinism as a defence of the bourgeois system. Strong as these arguments might appear at first sights they were not hard for the Socialists to overcome. To a large extent, they are the old arguments used against Socialism, but wearing the new garb of Darwinistic terminology, and they show an utter ignorance of Socialism as well as of capitalism.
Those who compare the social organism with the animal body leave unconsidered the fact that men do not differ like various cells or organs. but only in degree of their capacity. In society the division of labor cannot go so far that all capacities should perish at the expense of one. What is more, everyone who understands something of Socialism knows that the efficient division of labor does not cease with Socialism; that first under Socialism real divisions will be possible. The difference between the workers, their ability, and employments will not cease; all that will cease is the difference between workers and exploiters.
While it is positively true that in the struggle for existence those animals that are strong, healthy and well survive; yet this does not happen under capitalist competition. Here victory does not depend upon perfection of those engaged in the struggle, but in something that lies outside of their body. While this struggle may hold good with the small bourgeois, where success depends upon personal abilities and qualifications, yet with the further development of capital, success does not depend upon personal abilities, but upon the possession of capital. The one who has a larger capital at command as will soon conquer the one who has a smaller capital at his disposal, although the latter may be more skillful. It is not the personal qualities, but the possession of money that decides who the victor shall be in the struggle. When the small capitalists perish, they do not perish as men but as capitalists; they are not weeded out from among the living, but from the bourgeoisie. They still exist, but no longer as capitalists. The competition existing in the capitalist system is therefore something different in requisites and results from the animal struggle for existence.
Those people that perish as people are members of an entirely different class, a class that does not take part in the competitive struggle. The workers do not compete with the capitalists, they only sell their labor power to them. Owing to their being propertyless, they have not even the opportunity to measure their great qualities and enter a race with the capitalists. Their poverty and misery cannot be attributed to the fact that they fell in the competitive struggle on account of weakness. but because they were paid very little for their labor power, it is for this very reason that, although their children are born strong and healthy, they perish in great mass, while the children born to rich parents, although born sick, remain alive by means of the nourishment and great care that is bestowed on them. These children of the poor do not die because they are sick or weak, but because of external causes. It is capitalism which creates all those unfavorable conditions by means of exploitation, reduction of wages, unemployment crises, bad dwellings, and long hours of employment. It is the capitalist system that causes so many strong and healthy ones to succumb.
Thus the Socialists prove that different from the animal world, the competitive struggle existing between men does not bring forth the best and most qualified, but destroys many strong and healthy ones because of their poverty, while those that are rich, even if weak and sick, survive. Socialists prove that personal strength is not the determining factor, but it is something outside of man; it is the possession of money that determines who shall survive and who shall perish.
Here we see that the principle of the struggle for existence, formulated by Darwin and emphasized by Spencer, has a different effect on men than on animals. The principle that struggle leads to the perfection of the weapons used in the strife, leads to different results between men and animals. In the animal, it leads to a continuous development of natural organs; that is the foundation of the theory of descent, the essence of Darwinism. In men, it leads to a continuous development of tools, of the means of production. This, however, is the foundation of Marxism. Here we see that Marxism and Darwinism are not two independent theories, each of which applies to its special domain, without having anything in common with the other. In reality, the same principle underlies both theories. They form one unit. The new course taken by men, the substitution of tools for natural organs, causes this fundamental principle to manifest itself differently in the two domains; that of the animal world to develop according to Darwinians principle, while among mankind the Marxian principle applies. When men freed themselves from the animal world, the development of tools and productive methods, the division of labor and knowledge became the propelling force in social development. It is these that brought about the various systems, such as primitive communism, the peasant system, the beginnings of commodity production, feudalism, and now modern capitalism, and which bring us ever nearer to Socialism.


Í 1931 skrivar Zavadovsky greinina ‘The Physical and Biological in the Process of Organic Evolution’, sum bara staðfestir kommunistarnir í tíðini millum Marx, Engels, Pannekoe og 1931 vóru opnir fyri Darwin og darwinismu; Zavadowsky sipar enntá bæði til mútatiónir og nátturliga útveljing:

In this respect the dialectical conception of universal development--proved by Hegel and materialistically refashioned by Marx, Engels, and Lenin--covers the Darwinian theory of organic evolution, which is the concrete expression of the dialectical process applied to the biological form of motion of matter, and at the same time makes it possible to overcome a number of methodological errors and contradictions on these questions accumulated within the limits of bourgeois natural science.

Differentiating the conception of the biological as an expression of ontogenetic development, on the one hand, and phylogenetic development on the other, materialist dialectics considers as a particular, most complex form of considers phylogenesis as a interaction of the "biological" and "physical" (the organism and its surroundings) and of the biological with itself (the biological relationship of organisms). In this conception there are "eliminated," as it were, or retire into the background, both the purely physical laws of the external surroundings, and the "biophysiological" laws of individual development, qualitatively submitting to the new specific laws of historical biology.

At the same time dialectical methodology by no means eliminates the role of the external and physical in the process of organic evolution, requiring only a sharp definition of these conceptions in each case, and the recognition of the multiformity of all those forms of connection which exist between organisms and their external surroundings, between the "biological" and the "physical." Thus the physical constitutes the necessary condition in the framework of which the biological process takes place, but at the same time it enters as a necessary aspect into the biological process as such. Furthermore, it may be the direct stimulus of mutatory variations in the germ plasm, thus simultaneously being both external and internal in relation to the "biological." Finally, it may serve as the controlling factor which, in the process of natural selection, determines the very course of the evolutionary process, and therefore acts as the creator of biological forms. In this way the "external" is composed not only of the physical conditions of the external surroundings, but also of the biological encirclement by a milieu of other organisms, and also--in the case of the evolution of man--the social-economic relations prevailing within human society.

Only in virtue of these new relations, regulated by the Darwinian law of the struggle for life and natural selection, do individual inherited variations acquire the force of a factor in the formation of species, and can the most complex phenomena of biological. adaptation (such as protective colouring, mimicry, care for the progeny and the other instincts, parasitism, symbiosis, etc.), receive their rational materialist explanation.


Nú fer Eivind ivaleyst enn einaferð at ákæra meg fyri: 1) namesdropping, 2) fyri at draga úttalisir um Darwin úr samanhengi, 3) etc, etc. Hetta undrar meg slepp ikki, vitandi at maðurin ongar søguligar keldur hevur at peika á.

Í hesum langa innlegginum, havi eg víst aftur pástandinum hjá Eivind Ortind Simonsen, at Marx, Engels og Sovjet heilt útihýstu darwinismu og at Darwin bara var roknaður sum eitt icon, sum hetjan í gav íblástur fyri eini sekulerari framferð innan vísindina. Týðiligt er, at Marx, Engels og kommunistarnir í Sovjet, høvdu ikki bara mannin Darwin í huga men sjálva skrivingina, ástøði og detaljurnar. Sum ískot kunnu vit eisini inkludera at kommunistarnir skiltu darwinismuna ikki bara sum ein lívfrøðiligan veruleika, men eisini sum fyrimyndina í einum positivum samfelagið. Harnæst læt meg so eisini viðmerkja at eg persónliga ikki eri av tí hugsan, at allir kommunistar vóru darwinistar, og at kommunistar ikki høvdu sínar spurningar og iva um darwinismu, serstakliga um tess etiska grundarlag og seinni tá Lysenko kom undan kavið; kommunistarnir vóru ikki Darwin fjepparir, men Darwin og darwinisma gav sín íblástur og legði ikki grundarlagið, men var heldur partur av grundarlagnum innan Sovjet filosofi og vísind.

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