Was Darwin a Racist?
Summary
TLDRThis video script explores the complex legacy of Charles Darwin, challenging the myth that he was anti-racist. It discusses Darwin's opposition to slavery and his family's abolitionist ties, yet also highlights his views on racial hierarchy and the extermination of 'less intellectual' races. The script contrasts Darwin's progressive ideas with contemporaneous anti-racist voices, urging a nuanced understanding of historical figures and their ideologies.
Takeaways
- 🧔 The debate revolves around whether Charles Darwin, known for his impressive beard and scientific contributions, was a racist.
- 📚 The myth that Darwin was not racist is challenged, suggesting his opposition to slavery and belief in racial equality might be overstated.
- 🗓 In May 2020, protests against racism led to a reevaluation of historical figures, including Darwin, in academic circles.
- 🔍 Darwin's family ties to the abolitionist movement and his published works were initially seen as evidence against him being racist.
- 🌟 Anthropologist August Quintas criticized Darwin's 'Descent of Man' for justifying colonialism and genocide, influencing scientific conclusions.
- 📜 Darwin's correspondence with others reveals his belief in the gradation of intellectual powers between races and the extermination of 'less intellectual' races.
- 🏛️ Darwin did not openly demonstrate bigotry but his views supported a racial hierarchy and the superiority of certain races.
- 🤔 The script questions the defense that Darwin was simply a man of his time, pointing out that there were contemporaries who opposed his racial views.
- 🔬 Darwin's work is complex, with some parts being revolutionary and others toxic, and it's important to distinguish between them.
- 🌐 The script concludes that Darwin likely held racist views, and it's crucial to identify and discuss racism in historical figures honestly.
Q & A
What was the context that led to Charles Darwin's legacy being reviewed in 2020?
-In May 2020, widespread protests against police violence and racism in the US impacted various sectors, including academia. Social movements like Black in the Ivory and Shutdown STEM pressured universities to address historical white supremacy, leading to a review of Darwin's legacy.
What was the initial perception of Darwin's stance on race and racism?
-Darwin was initially seen as not racist due to his family ties to the abolitionist movement and his opposition to polygenism, which was a scientific theory of the time that insisted blacks and whites had separate ancestors.
How did Darwin's views on slavery align with his family's beliefs?
-Darwin's opposition to slavery was in line with his Wedgwood family's beliefs. His family was part of the 18th-century British abolitionist movement, and Darwin himself expressed pride in Britain's efforts to eradicate slavery.
What did anthropologist August Quintas criticize in Darwin's 'Descent of Man'?
-Anthropologist August Quintas criticized Darwin's 'Descent of Man' for justifying empire, colonialism, and genocide, arguing that Darwin's racism influenced his scientific conclusions.
What is the myth surrounding Darwin's views on race?
-The myth is that Darwin was not a racist and that his opposition to slavery and belief in racial equality reflected his views. This myth has been challenged by recent scholarship, suggesting that Darwin held more complex and sometimes racist views.
What did Darwin's correspondence with Charles Lyell reveal about his views on race?
-Darwin's correspondence with Charles Lyell revealed that he believed in gradations of intellectual powers between different races, implying a significant but not insurmountable gap between races, and that less intellectual races were being exterminated as part of natural selection.
How did Darwin's views on polygenism differ from his contemporaries?
-While Darwin disagreed with the idea that different human races were distinct species, he did not challenge the hierarchical view of races presented by others. He remarked on the extermination of lower races by higher civilized races as part of natural selection.
What evidence is there in Darwin's published works that suggests he supported racial hierarchy?
-In 'The Descent of Man,' Darwin emphasized racial competition and suggested that white groups always won when in contact with Aboriginal populations. He also leaned on research showing supposed correlations between brain size and intelligence across races, placing whites at the top.
What were the two defenses scholars used to argue that Darwin was not racist?
-Scholars defended Darwin by suggesting that acknowledging his support for wrong or malicious ideas would give victory to biblical creationists, and by arguing that he was simply a man of his time, despite also being considered ahead of his time.
How does the author of the article suggest we should view Darwin's legacy?
-The author suggests that we should view Darwin as a whole person, acknowledging both the toxic ideas and the revolutionary contributions in his work. This approach humanizes Darwin and encourages a more nuanced discussion of his legacy.
Outlines
🧔 Debunking the Myth of Charles Darwin's Anti-Racism
The paragraph introduces a debate on Charles Darwin's stance on race, challenging the popular belief that he was not racist. It references a book that questions this myth, particularly an article by Eric Petersen. The context is set by the May 2020 protests against racism and police violence in the US, which led to a reevaluation of historical figures, including Darwin. Despite initial views that Darwin's family ties to abolitionism and his opposition to polygenism indicated anti-racist beliefs, recent criticism suggests that his work may have supported colonialism and racial hierarchies.
🌍 Darwin's Personal Experiences and Views on Slavery
This section delves into Darwin's personal experiences with slavery during his voyage on the HMS Beagle and how these experiences influenced his views. It mentions his pride in Britain's efforts to abolish slavery and his opposition to it, which was contrary to what others predicted. The paragraph also discusses Darwin's admiration for the enslaved people he met, highlighting a complex view that includes both appreciation for their character and physique, and a perpetuation of stereotypes about 'happy slaves.'
📜 Darwin's Scientific and Private Views on Race
The paragraph explores Darwin's scientific and private correspondence to understand his views on race. It contrasts his public stance against polygenism, which argued for separate species for different races, with his private letters that suggest a belief in the natural extermination of 'less intellectual races.' The text also discusses Darwin's views on racial hierarchy, where he implies a gap in intellectual powers between races and supports the idea of natural selection favoring 'higher' races over 'lower' ones.
🔍 Reevaluating Darwin's Legacy on Race
The final paragraph examines Darwin's legacy in the context of race, acknowledging the complexity of his views. It points out that while Darwin did not openly express racist sentiments, his work was used to justify racist ideologies. The paragraph also critiques the defenses of Darwin as either a man ahead of his time or simply a man of his time, highlighting that there were contemporaneous voices against racism that Darwin was aware of. The conclusion calls for a balanced view of Darwin, recognizing both his scientific contributions and the problematic aspects of his racial views.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Racism
💡Charles Darwin
💡Polygenism
💡Natural Selection
💡Abolitionist Movement
💡Racial Hierarchy
💡The Descent of Man
💡Scientific Racism
💡Victorian Biology
💡White Supremacy
💡Anthropologist
Highlights
Debate on whether Charles Darwin was a racist, challenging the myth that he was not.
Context established with the 2020 US protests against racism and academia's response.
Darwin's family ties to the abolitionist movement and his opposition to polygenism initially seen as anti-racist.
Anthropologist August Quintas criticizes Darwin's 'Descent of Man' for justifying colonialism and genocide.
Darwin's views on race and his belief in the gradation of intellectual powers between races.
Darwin's correspondence with Charles Lyell revealing his views on the extermination of less intellectual races.
Darwin's published works arguing for the shared ancestry of all humans, a central aspect of his scientific contribution.
Darwin's firsthand experience of slavery in Brazil in 1833 and his subsequent support for abolition.
Darwin's admiration for the Brazilian black population, contrasting with his views on race hierarchy.
Darwin's private letters reveal a belief in white supremacy and the natural extinction of non-white races.
List of passages from 'The Descent of Man' supporting racial hierarchy and competition.
Darwin's views on the inferiorization of non-white races and the destruction of Aboriginal populations.
Scholarly defenses of Darwin as either a man ahead of his time or simply a man of his time.
The argument that Darwin's work should be seen in its entirety, including toxic ideas and revolutionary ideas.
The impact of Darwin's language and ideas on scientific racism and racial equality debates.
The importance of distinguishing between the mythologized and real person of Darwin, acknowledging his false ideas.
Call to action for a more nuanced discussion of Darwin's work and the need to identify and challenge racism.
Transcripts
hello everyone and let's come back to
our British gentleman Charles darn and
in particular I would like to debate the
question whether this nice man with the
impressive beard was actually a racist
and there's actually a myth that is
existing surrounding
Darwin that he was not a racist that
Darwin's hatred of slavery reflected his
beliefs in raal equality equality and uh
this view is probably a myth as recently
pointed out in a book on the myths of Ja
Darin and this is in particular the
article of Eric Petersen so let's look
into the article so the article first
starts with establishing some context
and this is particular that in May 2020
we had widespread Pro protests in the us
against police violence and racism
impacted various sectors
including uh Academia so that was what
the pro protests were about social
movements like black in the ivory and
shutdown stem pressured University to
address historical white supremacy in
both visible and subtle ways actions
included removing statues renaming
buildings and creating new cour forces
then as Academia scrutinized racial
legacies Charles Darin's Legacy came
under review despite being historically
seen as an unlikely
Target uh Darwin's Family Ties to
evolutionism and his opposition to
polygenism were initially seen as
evidence Against Racism so if we read it
concretely some Jim Watson of double
helix Fame perhaps most
glaringly made for easy targets but
Charles darn seemed an unlikely one for
starters Darwin was Wedgewood through
his mother's side Josiah wedw cast the
iconic am I not a man and a brother
Medallion the unforgettable symbol of
18th century British abolish AB
Abolitionist Movement and in The Descent
of men and selection in relation to sex
published in
1871 Charles Darwin son of and husband
to wedgewood's attacked the
justification of polygenism the
scientific theory of that day that
insisted blacks and whites had separate
ancestors however uh in
2021 with the
150 anniversary there was the
Anthropologist August quentes who
criticized Darin's Descent of Man for
justifying Empire colonialism and
genocide quentas argued that Darin's
racism influence to Scientific
conclusions so it's highly relevant
actually Darwin was frequently and
notably more modern in his thinking than
most victorians they claimed The Descent
of Man the second of Darwin's Trilogy
extending his abstract of origin species
Darwin demolished the slavery justifying
view of different races as separate
species Beyond merely reforming
Victorian biology this group claimed
descent inspired later anti racist
perspectives and this is probably true
to a degree but we have to see the full
picture so Charles Darin hated slavery
just like his wetwood family or so it is
thought taught in many biological class
biology classrooms so why is that um
yeah this is probably because we need a
myth right uh we need uh the startling
modding thinker on issues of race indeed
a Proto boasian
Anthropologist um this is a myth and
like the author here patteron or what is
his name yeah he attempts to actually
debunk
it so against this article of fenus we
had like a backlash a group of Scholars
defended Darwin claiming he was ahead of
his time and opposed to slavery
supporting theories they argued that The
Descent of Man contributed to
anti-racist perspectives that's what
I've just read so
um yeah so far for the introduction now
let's come to the argument so here we
see that Darwin as influenced by the
Wedgewood Family Tradition displayed the
strong distaste for cruelty towards both
animals and humans uh near Rio de
Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady
who kept screws to crush the fingers of
a female slaves I will not even allude
to the many heart signning
atrocities uh who speak of slavery as a
tolerable evil so Darwin firsthand
experien in Brazil 1833 that was during
his journey at the HMS Beagle uh the
brutal realities of
slavery and actually Darwin learned to
support here the abolition Darwin
expressed pride in Great Britain moved
to eradicate slavery a sentiment he
shared in a later letter to his sister
so he
wrote uh what a proud thing for England
if she is the first European nation
which utterly abolishes it Darwin felt
that living in slave countries only
strengthened his opposition to slavery
contrary to what others had predicted
yeah and like we also see here a kind of
weird appreciation of of the okay the
word I'm not supposed to say right uh a
much higher estimate of the ha character
it is impossible to see and not feel
kindly towards him such cheerful open
honest expression and such fine muscular
Muscular bodies and the text uh
rightfully criticizes and this widely
quoted passage Davin revealed both swarm
feelings for the enslaved person
physique and cheerfulness we may not as
a cringeworthy repetition of the happy
slave anecdote ever after baked into the
picous American lost CA myth so Darwin
was never racist in the conventional
sense of the word that's actually the
myth he expressed his dislike of slavery
and his ADM admir admiration for the
Brazilian black
population so that then is the myth and
Darwin actually published works
consistently arguing for the shared
ancestry of all humans a central aspect
of his scientific contribution this is
basically what this articles has so now
however let's look at Darwin's thoughts
on Race So what certainly stands out in
this regard is his correspondence with
his former geology geology teacher
Charles ly that basically taught him to
think in the Deep dimensions of time
Darwin believed in gradation gradations
of intellectual powers between different
races implying a significant but not
insurmountable gap between a hotten tot
and an urang I guess an urutan maybe I
wrote that wrong here I guess it's in
Ran Darwin suggested that less
intellectual races were being
exterminated a process he saw As Natural
Selection and action
quote I look at this process as now
going on with the R es of man the less
ex intellectual races being
exterminated uh so this is what he says
here right uh so we see here already a
view that supports a certain kind of
racism and genocide right uh so let's
look at his views on
polygenism uh the idea that we have more
than one common ancestor so Darin indeed
disagreed with the idea that different
human races were distinct species but he
did not challenge the hierarchical view
of races presented by others he remarked
on the extermination of lower Races by
higher civilized
races as part of natural selection
Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish
Hollow in the struggle for
existence um we find that
struggle of existence improving the face
of Earth uh I'm not entirely sure where
I put this quote let me just find it hot
that's what I said
before and
then Caucasians races have beaten the
Turkish Hollow and the struggle for
existence so we see here really a
pattern that just starts repeating in
his correspondence with Charles Kingsley
so King suggested that the superior
white race naturally selected against
other races a view D Darwin did not
dispute in 500 years how the Anglo-Saxon
race will have spread and exterminated
whole
Nations um and in his published work
that's then also uh like object of
debate he actually said in The Descent
of Man that racial competition
and he actually emphasized racial
competition and he suggested that white
groups always won when in contact with
Aboriginal populations like for example
in Australia he leaned on Research
showing supposed correlations between
brain size and intelligence across races
placing whites at the top and
darkskinned Australians at the bottom
implications are that Darin's private
letters reveal a belief in white
supremacy and the natural Extinction of
non-white
races and uh here is actually a
list
of and I need to show it yeah so let's
rotate it yeah so here's a list of
passages in The Descent of Man where we
actually see that he supports racial
hierarchy so uh like dark colored races
have a greater sense of
smell so is that racial similarity no is
it racial hierarchy yes then their
cranial capacity ranking from
92.3 in Europeans to 81 kubic whatever
it is cubic inch I guess um this is no
racial similarity but again racial
hierarchy and Savages will only risk
life to save own Community civilized
will risk life of strangers as weird as
that is slavery is a great crime Savages
treat women like slaves torture and
abuse animals show kindness to Keen but
not to strangers except Mongol Park
common experience justifies the maxim of
the Spaniard never never trust an Indian
so racial similarity is here uh
uncertain but there's racial
hierarchy uh the law the laow morality
of savages because a they are only
sympathetic to their own tribe and B low
reasoning skills to see broader
consequences of action C weak power of
self-command which in the Civilized
comes through habit perhaps inherited
instruction and religion so then we have
on page 147 civilized man extend
sympathy sympathies to all in nation
then all humans then beyond humans
unfelt by Savages except towards their
pet and that goes on and goes on and
goes on and goes on so we find actually
many passages that suggest that Darwin
indeed had racist views now how to
interpret this let's come uh to the
final passages here um Darwin never
openly demonstrated the sort of
emotionally D driven bigor tree and the
desent Descent of Man so it was not as
open yeah uh but it certainly was an
inferiorization
yeah uh perhaps as
influential um oh let's skip this
so we cannot say the same about
inferiorization so he has not an
antipathy against like the Savages right
so but we see here even with the sin of
Brazilian slavery washed away he
believed all uncivilized people would be
exterminated the gap between humans and
apes
widened and then uh let's see like
scholar came up with two defenses
basically the first one that even
hinting that Darin would have supported
wrong or malicious ideas means bib
biblical creationists will
win okay so the idea here is if we
demolish the picture of Darwin
as and anti-racist person then
creationists will win and the second
defense is he was simply a man of his
time which
interestingly uh conflicts with him
being Sim simultaneously lorded as a man
ahead of his time so and the author
actually makes some good good points
about how to look at that um so for
example Anthropologist Jonathan Marx
responded in the fren's 2021 for Forum
discussing the ideas that are toxic In
Darwin's work in addition to those that
are presend and revolutionary helps to
Mark make Darin seem more real and his
followers seem less cult-like and I
agree we should probably discuss the
whole person of Darwin right and then uh
for the second strategy in other words
to say Darwin was a man of his time
means to imagine that no prominent
voices or at least nonfamiliar to him
would be crying out against Darwin's own
attitude toward the destruction of
Aboriginal populations but there were
such voices and Darwin knew them well so
and actually the text list before some
of these voices uh so yeah let's come I
mean let's not look at or I mean now I
showed it so this is like one of these
pictures that clearly um supports this
kind of racism and it claims that the
figure in 21 was I guess in the wake of
Darin and old racism received a new
scientific justification in the Lexicon
through Darin um let's see what the
author writes about it completely it is
a shame Darin could not have wielded
that original wetwood Abol abolitionist
flame to argue for racial equality
instead any scientific argument for
racial equality lost Credence for at
least half a century after Darin
descent became not an egreg egregious
example of scientific racism but all to
typical scientific texts adopted Darin's
language to justify their racist
assumptions with astonishing rapidity
following the desent of man yeah and I
think this should be definitely also
something that we should keep in mind
and talk about and yeah so if we
ask was
Darwin actually a
racist we should probably say yes was he
simply a man of his time no there were
voices that were speaking out against
this kind of racism uh so we have to
learn to
identify racism where it occurs I mean I
say that as a white person right
but so I guess like I'm not the right
person to lead this kind of discourse um
and actually I don't know if I should
how much I should get involved in this
discourse for these reasons but looking
at Darwin I think we need to learn to
distinguish between the person that we
usually put on a pedestal and say it was
a genius and then the real
person that had many false
ideas um that were rooted in a false
ideology and yeah I just talk around
saying he was a man of his
time well there were always
anti racist arguments and maybe we
should then emphasize these thank you
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