Post-war environmentalism was an antigenetic reaction to social Darwinism

Evidence

A unifying assumption behind this 1940s–1950s interdisciplinary flourishing is that political personality and the behavior of leaders and masses are formed by socialization experiences, especially those emphasized by the environmentalistic metatheorizing of psychoanalytic, behavioristic, and Marxist theorizing. The era’s environmentalism was an exaggerated antigenetic reaction to the excesses of social Darwinism by Spencer and others earlier in the century, and held the hope of ameliorating the disturbed economic and political conditions left by World War I. Another shared ideological orientation was a loathing for the fascistic personality, a syndrome hard to define but (at least in those days) one knew it when one saw it. These revulsions against social Darwinism and fascism were probably related (Hofstadter, 1944; Stein, 1988). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 331 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In the seventies and eighties of the last century, Darwinism was still almost exclusively in the hands of the utilitarian anti-colonial party in England. And the first philosopher of evolution, Herbert Spencer, who treated sociology as part of biology, believed natural selection to benefit the evolution of mankind and to result in everlasting peace. For political discussion, Darwinism offered two important concepts: the struggle for existence with optimistic assertion of the necessary and automatic “survival of the fittest,” and the indefinite possibilities which seemed to lie in the evolution of man out of animal life and which started the new “science” of eugenics. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 473 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Gilded Age social Darwinism and ‘network effects’ both excuse capitalist concentration as fate — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 340; Postwar political psychology’s environmentalism was a reaction against social Darwinism and fascism — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 331; Darwinism was politically neutral and initially served anti-colonial and pacifist causes — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 473 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Postwar political psychology’s environmentalism was a reaction against social Darwinism and fascism #corroborates (1.00) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 331
• Darwinism was politically neutral and initially served anti-colonial and pacifist causes #complicates (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 473
• Darwinism was politically neutral and served both race rule and its opponents #complicates (0.75)