Darwin and Hitler: Prominent anti-Jewish voices rejected Darwin
Many of the most prominent advocates of the
above ideas knew little about Darwin, or actually repudiated him. So how could Darwinism be necessary for the
Holocaust? Gobineau was skeptical of
evolution, famously quipping “I’m not sure if humans came from apes, but we’re
certainly heading in that direction.”
Houston Chamberlain, the biologist whose massively influential racial
meta-narrative modified Gobineau’s ideas into hatred of Jews and elevation of
Germans, rejected Darwin outright. In
his magnum opus of race, Foundations of
the 19th Century,
he passionately pleaded for Germans to recognize that the entire “moral and
intellectual history of Europe” was a dramatic struggle between the
contaminating chaos created by Jews and half-breeds, and the great attainments
of civilization created by the masterful Germanic spirit. He thought Darwinism was part of the problem,
not cure, and emphatically decried “the evolution mania and the
pseudo-scientific dogmatism of our century” and “the frenzy produced by the
dogma of evolution, which has led to such confusion of thought in the 19th
Century.” Speaking of the “powerful
influence” exercised by “a manifestly
unsound system like that of Darwin” the following could almost
have come from Expelled:
And
so we have seen the idea of evolution develop itself till it spread from
biology and geology to all spheres of thought and investigation, and,
intoxicated by its success, exercised such a tyranny that any one who did not
swear by it was to be looked upon as a simpleton.
An intellectual freedom fighter! And Chamberlain did not stop with critiquing
the excesses of Darwinism. He advocated a wholesale rejection of scientific
materialism (sharing this goal, but surely not others, with the agenda of the
DI, which “seeks nothing less than the overthrow of
materialism and its cultural legacies.”) For his doctoral work he argued that the
major mechanistic theories of the day could not explain how water could flow so
high up trees from their roots, and postulated a non-material “vital
force.” It turns out that plant water
relations was an area of emphasis in my own doctoral work as well, and
Chamberlain was entirely correct to reject existing mechanistic theories as
being inadequate. But he was wrong to
conclude that because we couldn’t explain it then, we needed a special
non-material cause. We have since
discovered a fascinating explanation for the “ascent of sap.” This points out the danger of arguing for
special forces on the basis of gaps in present understanding. In any case, it turns out that Chamberlain
was never awarded his doctorate.
Expelled?
Not really, and he was certainly not expelled from social
influence. Chamberlain arguably became one of the most expansive master-race
theorists in Germany, if not all history.
In addition to repudiating Darwinism and rejecting scientific
materialism, his views were anchored in a spiritual, explicitly Christocentric
understanding of history. “The birth of Jesus Christ is the
most important date in the whole history of mankind... ’history’ in the real
sense of the term only begins with the birth of Christ...non-Christian peoples
have no true history, but merely annals.” For Chamberlain, Jews were the
resistors of historical progress.
Germans were the intellectual, moral, and even biological heirs of
divine destiny. (Thus, “Christ was no Jew” and there was “not a drop of
genuinely Jewish blood in his veins.”)
Chamberlain’s
thinking does not appear to involve mere religious posturing but genuine
conviction: “having once seen Jesus Christ - even if it be with half-veiled
eyes - we cannot forget Him...[nothing]can dispel the vision of the Man of
Sorrow when once it has been seen.”
His book was widely discussed throughout Germany, being required reading
in civic life. Early in his political
career, Hitler visited the nationally prominent
ageing anti-Semite several times in his family home. After one such visit, Chamberlain wrote “Most
respected and dear Hitler...That Germany, in the hour of her greatest need,
brings forth a Hitler is proof of her vitality...May God protect you!”
Given this gripping story,
and others, it is not difficult to see how some make the case that it is
Christianity that led to or at least inspired the Holocaust. And not just Christianity, but a
Darwin-rejecting, special causes-promoting, transcendental interpretation of
history not unlike some forms of contemporary anti-evolutionism. In Fighting
Words: Origins of Religious Violence,
religion scholar Hector Avalos concludes that “Nazi racism is a synthesis of
modern pseudoscience and biblical concepts of ethnocentrism and genealogical
purity...In this regard, Nazi ideology is similar to creationist ideology...”In
a recent lecture responding to Expelled,
Avalos claimed “Hitler was a creationist who used biblical and theological
rationales in his policies.”
So which is it - Hitler was a Darwinist, or
Hitler was a creationist?
And here’s a final, fascinating twist to this
story: Hector Avalos is the atheist
professor at Iowa State who coauthored and spearheaded the petition against ID
after the publication of Gonzalez’s book.
What a densely tangled web. Are Avalos’s conclusions suspect because of
his stringently anti-religious commitments?
If so, we’d have to apply the same logic to questioning the conclusions
of Weikart and Expelled. But such criticisms entail the genetic
fallacy - criticizing an idea on the basis of its origin. No, Avalos’s and Expelled’s assertions stand or fall on the merits of evidence, and
they by no means exclude each other, or other proposals. It appears both conclusions entail a kernel
of truth surrounded by a nutrient endosperm of over-simplification.
Both Darwin and the Bible were seized upon by
anti-Jewish zealots in search of a legitimating ideology. Hatred is notoriously indiscriminate in what
it cobbles together to justify itself.
Hitler, in particular, evidenced little regard for learning and - as the historical sources cited by recent
defenders and critics of Expelled
acknowledge - he extracted whatever was useful to support his preconceptions,
from widely ranging popular, crude sources. In the case of Darwinian
and Christian tradition though, there really exist disturbing themes that were
(and are) amenable to misuse. However
the fundamental ideas of the Holocaust were not just absent from, but contrary
to the founders of each tradition. This
would seem to represent something considerably weaker than being “necessary
for,” but rather involves being “amenable to” distortion and employment by
Nazism.
In the current public controversy raised by Expelled, many of those most prominently
linking Darwin to Hitler are Christian anti-Darwinians. Many of those most prominently defending
Darwin and blaming Christianity are evolutionary atheists. Surprise, surprise - each blaming the
other. Ironically, it is precisely this
out-group blame casting, the impulse to find a moral scapegoat for life gone
awry that, if anything, could
be identified as the ultimate cause of the Holocaust. This is not to say that great evil does not
have ascribable proximate causes, and that ideas, individuals, and societies
cannot be assigned responsibility. But
ought not the task of moral assessment - even at the historical level - begin
with ourselves and our own traditions?
In the view of many, a film that employs case
studies of the sufferings endured by four Christians, who support an American
anti-Darwin movement made up almost entirely of Christians, the ideas of which
are represented in the movie by interviews with sympathizers who are nearly all
Christians - a work that does this by employing the murder of six million Jews
in a criticism of these Christians’ enemy is - at best - rhetorically inastute
and gravely insensitive. In response to these
issues, the Anti-Defamation League issued a formal statement about the film:
The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as a part of its political effort
to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent
design theory. Hitler did not need
Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin
and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness. Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those
who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex
factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry.
Of course mining for critical quotes doesn’t
validate a criticism, and the debate
over Darwin and Hitler rages with vigor and virulence in the wake of Expelled. Polemicists notwithstanding, did Expelled mistreat the issue of the
Holocaust itself? Sadly, even if there
were merit to the Darwin à Hitler claim, the answer would still be yes. The immensely
complicated intellectual topic was over-simplified, and the gravely important
moral issue was rendered by the film with painfully inadequate nuance and
dignity. Moreover, the DI makes this
worse rather than better by claiming, in response to vitriolic reviews that
emphasize this feature of the movie,
that “Actually the discussion of the influence of Darwinism on the Nazis
in Expelled lasts only about ten
minutes...” “Only” 10 minutes on the Holocaust? First off, when it comes to the commandeering
gravitas of the Holocaust, there is no such thing as “only” a few minutes of
emphasis. The images rightly conscript
attention and leave their indelible stamp on the film and on the viewer.
Second, what does it say about respect for one of the gravest moral
catastrophes of history, to spend only a few minutes making a complicated,
serious, and highly controversial claim about its cause?
Regrettably, it doesn’t stop just there. There have been ugly, destructive personal
castigations of Stein himself as being a self-loathing Jewish anti-Semite, or
as having committed a “blood libel on Western Civilization.” This is awful, and it could even be seen as
playing the emotional trump card of racism that Stein is being accused of
himself. Ben Stein does not condone Jew
hatred any more than Darwin inspired it. The infinite regress of moral
accusation can be broken by recognizing that not all who mishandle the topic of
racism, endorse it. Yet having said this, things are not helped by Stein’s
response to concerns that the topic was mishandled, which he begins with the
line: “Let’s make this short and sweet.” Short and sweet on
setting right an offense over how the Holocaust was treated, perpetuates if not confirms the perceptions
that need to be corrected. Stein then
deals with Darwin, imperialism, and the Holocaust - in 800 words. And he concludes by suggesting, with no
discussion of the science at all, that maybe we would be better off without
Darwinism in preference to a new theory.
Why? “We are just pitiful humans. Life is unimaginably complex. We are
still trying to figure it out. We need every bit of input we can get. Let’s be humble about what we know and what
we don’t know, and maybe in time, some answers will come.” Oh, Ben - yes! But physician, heal thyself. Why could you not have followed this wise
counsel in the treatment of the “unimaginably complex” issue of the Holocaust,
not to mention the grand questions of science and religious belief currently in
need of a healing touch.
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