This article is an examination of how we humans are not exempt from the laws of nature and natural selection. And we also see how the current decline of the West has been at the hands of those who ignored the wisdom of Darwin and imposed on all of us artificial individual equality that does not exist in nature.
In the end, Darwin seems to endorse a communitarian ethic moderated and informed by reason (my emphasis):
In the case of the lower animals it seems much more appropriate to speak of their social instincts, as having been developed for the general good rather than for the general happiness of the species. The term, general good, may be defined as the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full vigour and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are subjected. As the social instincts both of man and the lower animals have no doubt been developed by nearly the same steps, it would be advisable to take as the standard of morality, the general good or welfare of the community, rather than the general happiness; but this definition would perhaps require some limitation account of political ethics. (145)
This argument appears to be a critique of English philosopher J. S. Mill’s argument for ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’ as the yardstick of morality. Instead, Darwin is advocating something remarkably close to the ancient principles of political philosophy, as notably expounded by Aristotle (whose background as a biologist actually informed his politics): the organization of society so as to enable the community’s collective flourishing, with individual roles and social goals appropriate according to the individual’s and the species’ particular biological nature (in the case of man, that of a rational social animal).
Personally, I believe the ancient republican principles are overwhelmingly superior to the modern and would endorse an Aristotelian-Darwinian political philosophy as particularly appropriate to our scientific age.
The ideas of Locke and Rousseau — extolling equality, rights, and the popular will as ends-in-themselves — have led to perpetual confusion among our people and to our inexorable collapse since the beginning the twentieth century. In 1914, we essentially dominated the world and made up a third of human population. Before 2100, a blink of an eye in historical let alone evolutionary terms, we will have lost control not only of our colonial empires but even of our own homelands, being reduced to minorities in not only North America but even Western Europe. We will make up less than 5 percent of the global population. The triumph of liberal-democracy’s individualist and egalitarian principles have coincided with Europeans’ evolutionary suicide.
