Distributism vs. Evolution

Another essay in the 'Distributism vs X' series, this one by my very good friend, Roy F. Moore.

From The ChesterBelloc Mandate

“It is absurd for the Evolutionists to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into anything.”-G.K. Chesterton

One of the ripple effects of evolution’s impact is the dehumanization of society. With the supernatural removed from the foundation of a society, mankind begins degrading not just toward the bestial but toward the demonic. Have a society treat its citizens as mere talking animals and genetic accidents, mere units of production and consumption, and it will end up as a soulless parody of itself. It will be a Hyde without a Jekyll, and that is on a good day. Or as Chesterton so put it: “Evolution. . .does not specifically deny the existence of God; what it does deny is the existence of man.”

As well does it deny our obligations to our fellow man, to “love your neighbor as yourself” as Christ commanded us in the Gospels. Such was the stand of the philosopher Herbert Spencer, who applied Darwin’s theory to the workings of human society and invented “Social Darwinism”. It was Spencer who coined the term "survival of the fittest," believing that a dog-eat-dog view of economics and politics could only benefit society. It was these views that he drew from Darwin that convinced the robber baron and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to renounce his Protestant faith, as Darwin did when he was forty. Paraphrasing his new mentor, Carnegie proclaimed: "The concentration of capital is a necessity for meeting the demands of our day, and as such should not be looked at askance, but be encouraged."

To the present day, those who run multinational conglomerates - of whatever industry - seem to have imbibed such an inhumane philosophy as if it were mother’s milk. By either merging their companies with one another, or buying out or undercutting their smaller competition, big business continues to devastate the workings of a true market economy with their insistence on Carnegie’s take on evolutionist thought.

Such a flawed worldview was also a part of the backbone of Karl Marx’s brand of Socialism. When he wrote his turgid work Das Kapital, he wished to dedicate the book to Darwin, expressing his deep admiration for his theory. To his credit, Darwin refused such “generosity” from the vicious Marx. Lenin, building on his work, made evolution part of the backbone of his “scientific atheism”, which became the official “religion” of the Soviet Union. And the bloodthirsty Chairman Mao with his Little Red Book of Marx and Darwin-based saying almost drove poor suffering China mad.

Hitler and the Nazis were the other socialist camp that pushed a miserable evolutionist utopia upon mankind. Combining Darwin’s theories with bits and pieces of Hinduism, Theosophy, Jew hatred, Nordic paganism and the nihilism of Nietzsche, the Nazi creed brought both Germany and Europe into the realm of nightmares and mass murder. The Nazis particularly upheld a branch tenet of evolution that, they believed, would lead to an end of all genetic diseases. It was hidden under the euphemism “racial hygiene,” but was known to all the world as Eugenics.

With its roots in Darwin’s theories, and with private support from the man himself, the Eugenics movement was guided by Sir Francis Galton whose cousin was...Charles Darwin.

In his book Eugenics and Other Evils, Chesterton took on the forerunners of the modern birth control and abortion movements, and did so with gusto. In What’s Wrong With the World and The Outline of Sanity, Chesterton tackled the two-headed dragon of capitalism and socialism, smashing it to pieces. In all three works, by implication, he denounced one of their foundational tenets. And that was the fantasies of Darwin, Galton and their successors who to this day still insist that humanity emerged by chance from some “primordial ooze” billions of years ago and continues to advance, continues to progress, continues to improve. All who dare challenge such fantasies are shunned and derided as “unscientific” and worse.

In contrast, Distributism holds to the truth that man - male and female - was made from the loving hand of Almighty God. So in a Distributist society, the eternal in man is affirmed and held sacred. The children of Adam and Eve are not treated as mere numbers in an equation. Economic competition plays out between smaller rivals, with the aim of serving the local community rather than dominating it like a colossus. Government regulation emphasizes protecting the community from both larger government entities as well as conglomerates.

Humanity is not a herd of thoughtless beasts, though too often we act like we are. We are creatures made in the image and likeness of God, a “little lower than the angels” as the Psalmist says. A truly free and fair society, or one that can be such in an imperfect world as ours, recognizes that fact and structures itself to guide it’s citizens toward their final end, which is union with Our Heavenly Father. The founders of Distributism, and those who walk in their footsteps, would expect and accept nothing less. As Chesterton said:

"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man."

Gilbert! Magazine
Reprinted with Permission