Looking Backward is a Utopian novel written by Edward Bellamy. The story is about Julian West, an American who falls into a deep hypnosis induced sleep only to wake up hundred and thirteen years later. When he wakes up, he is still in the same location but in a totally transformed world (Bellamy 11). He has also been changed into a socialist utopia. The book illustrates Bellamy’s views about changing and improving the future hence, bringing out four major themes; advantages of a socialist system, perils of the stock market, use of credit card and engaging the industrial army to curb some occurrences. In his novel, Bellamy uses the term evolution to signify major changes in technology and economy. His views on economy and technology contrast Charles Darwin’s theory: Origin of Species. In this theory Charles acknowledges the 19th Century as an economic century and extends his politico-economic views of progress to the whole realm of vegetable and animal life.
Darwin’s theory on Origin of Species is crucial in understanding Bellamy’s novel because Bellamy critiques what is expressed in Darwin’s theory. Bellamy reflects the Utopian critique of social Darwinism where he tries to come up with positive alternatives in relevance to the Capitalist ethics of greed and Darwinian struggle for survival (Bellamy 4-26). The novel reflects future America where evolutionary love will operate without struggle for materials. These products focused in the utopian imagination were ridiculed by the social Darwinists. Bellamy’s novel downplays struggle for the fittest by encouraging evolutionary love and emphasizing on the role of cooperative human culture in evolutionary development. Therefore, while Bellamy tries to come up with a better world, Cha...
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...eir male counterparts. Darwin’s theory helps us understand the manner in which women were perceived and what sort of change Bellamy proposes to change this perception. It helps us understand the benefits and drawbacks that are likely to ensue as a result of Bellamy’s perception on who women are.
Bellamy views spiritual evolution as the underlying value in bringing unity. He proposes that spiritual evolution will lead to love where one perceives his neighbor as a brother and kill the enmity brought about by unhealthy competitions. He advocates for Christian socialism through Mr. Barton’s sermon. This contradicts Darwin’s theory and which defends competition and encourages capitalism.
Bibliography
Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward:2000-1887. New York: Random house, 1917.
Darwin, Charles. origin of Species. London: John Murray, 1989.
MAS Ultra School Edition. Wednesday, February 6th, 2014. Internet Stefoff, Rebecca. The. “Charles Darwin: And the Evolution Revolution.”
People have always wondered what the future will be like. Certainly Edward Bellamy did when he wrote the novel, Looking Backward (1888). Bellamy uses a man named Mr. West as the main character in this novel. He opens by telling who he is and what his social standing is. West is a young man, around the age of 30, and is fairly wealthy. At the beginning, he tells us about his fiancé, Edith, and the house he is having trouble building for her. The trouble comes from the fact that the workers keep going on strike due to financial reasons, which prolongs the completion of the house. The biggest hint to the end of the novel comes from when he tells the reader that he suffers from insomnia. West must be put to sleep through a trance in his bedroom, which is an entirely padded room in the basement of his home. When people sleep they often dream, which leads one to believe they can predict the ending of the novel.
In Charles Darwin’s life he had helped make a significant advancement in the way mankind viewed the world. With his observations, he played a part in shifting the model of evolution into his peers’ minds. Darwin’s theory on natural selection impacted the areas of science and religion because it questioned and challenged the Bible; and anything that challenged the Bible in Darwin’s era was sure to create contention with the church. Members of the Church took offense to Darwin’s Origins of Species because it unswervingly contradicted the teachings of the book of Genesis in the Bible. (Zhao, 2009) Natural selection changed the way people thought. Where the Bible teaches that “all organisms have been in an unchanging state since the great flood, and that everything twas molded in God’s will.” (Zhao, 2009) Darwin’s geological journey to the Galapagos Islands is where he was first able to get the observations he needed to prove how various species change over t...
In the year 2081 in “Harrison Bergeron,” George and Hazel both have restraints to hold back any so-called “advantage,” that they may possess. This in turn, forces innovation and evolution into a sudden hault. “Totem” on the other hand, says that evolution has overdeveloped where the social structure is back, where sympathy is nonexistent. It suggests that the development of society has also taken a standstill and is struggling to innovate. The two stories are similar in a way that both argue no matter which angle humans approach society from, an equilibrium must be established for a successful environment to unfold.
Gamble first seeks to refute Darwinian perspectives of male superiority. In referencing the “superior degree of development” (Gamble 74) of “female in all the orders of life below mankind” (74), Gamble demonstrates an explicit understanding of Darwin’s rhetoric strategies. By countering Darwin’s argument on the same level of evolutionary science and societal class, Gamble challenges ideals on the essential characteristics of women. Gamble’s intimate understanding of Darwin’s theory sets her as an equal to Darwin. Gamble furthers this response by alluding to Darwin’s own “law of equal transmission of characters to both sexes” (76) in the development of females. Gamble’s use of Darwin’s own argument effectively bolsters her own ethos, a point critical to reaching a society still dominated by males. This parallel structure not only suggests a fallacy in Darwin’s reasoning, but one in the social dogma of male supremacy. However, it is Gamble’s novel point on highlighting those very differences that is crucial to her defense of women. Gamble cites the “distinctive characters” (77) of women including “perception and intuition” (77), along with “greater powers of endurance” (77) as unique traits of women. While aforementioned and subsequently dismissed by Darwin, Gamble’s
The. The “Challenging Darwin”. Bioscience. 2(2005). The 'Secondary' of the 'S 101, eLibrary.
The world is advancing so rapidly today, it seems that it will never stop growing in knowledge and complexity. In the novel “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, The Time Traveler, as Wells calls him, travels hundreds of thousands of years into the future through time. He arrives at a world that, at first glimpse, is peaceful and clear of any worries. As The Time Traveler explores the world, he discovers that the human race has evolved into 2 distinct forms. Although the world appeared to be the Garden of Eden, it was, in reality, the Garden of Evil. Wells uses three aspects of the futuristic world to illustrate this: the setting, the Eloi, and the Murlocks.
The first example of the people’s unwillingness to accept new ideas, such as Darwinian theory, is towards the beginning of the book when both sides of the prosecution arrive in Hillsboro. The town is parading up and down the streets chanting, “give me that old time religion”, and “down with Darwin”. The irony of this is that none of them have read Darwin’s book, for example, when E.K. Hornbeck was talking to Eliza, the Bible salesman. Eliza said, that he, “can’t neither read nor write”, so he could not have read Darwin’s book, but yet he is calling Hornbeck a “sinner, and “evil-utionist” for believing in its ideas. None of the town’s people on Mr. Brady’s side of the trial have read, The Evolution of Species, not even Mr.Brady himself. Nevertheless, they will not accept the idea or take it into consideration. It is the town’s peopl...
The “Roaring Twenties” was a time period known for its innovation. Skirts got shorter, teens got bolder, and Prohibition was in full swing. These changes also gave way to a time period full of religious conflict. “In [religious] minds, Prohibition had always been about more than alcohol. It represented an effort to defend traditional American values against the growing influence of an urban, cosmopolitan culture” (Gillon 152). Charles Darwin had published his book, The Evolution of Species, in 1859 and The Descent of Man in 1871, detailing the evolution of man from ape-like creatures. When A Civic Biology, a biology textbook containing information on evolution, was published in 1914, teachers around the country began using it in their courses. By the twenties, these books had sparked all sorts of new ideas regarding the origin of man as well as opposition due to the creature from which he claimed we evolved and to the disagr...
In order to comprehend the present state of these two forces, it is necessary to analyze more completely the meanings of Social Darwinism and Social Welfare. Every since Charles Darwin published the Origin of the Species in 1859, social scientists have attempted to explain human behavior as a product of natural selection. In the 19th century, Social Darwinism held that history was about the "survival of the fittest" and "superior" social groups were evolutionary more fit to rule the world. Social Darwinism was at the heart of many pernicious theories of the past century, including scientific racism and eugenics (Goldfield, et al, 1998, p. 721).
Darwin's General Summary and Conclusions of the Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex In the "General Summary and Conclusions" of The Descent of Man, and
Keith Henson a writer in evolutionary psychology once said that “Evolution acts slowly. Our psychological characteristics today are those that promoted reproductive success in the ancestral environment.” Evolution was first introduced by a naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin. Darwin had written an autobiography, at the age of 50, On the Origin of Species (1859) explaining how species evolve through time by natural selection; this theory became known as Darwinism. “Verlyn Klinkenborg, who writes editorials and vignettes on science and nature for the “New York Times”” (Muller 706) questions Darwin’s theory in one of his essays he wrote called Darwin at 200: The Ongoing Force of His Unconventional Idea. Both articles talk about the theory of Darwinism, but the authors’ use different writing techniques and were written in different time periods. Darwin himself writes to inform us on what the theory is, where as Klinkenborg goes on to explain why Darwinism is just a theory. Today, evolution is still a very controversial topic among many. It comes up in several topics that are discussed everyday such as in politics, religion and education.
By the example of Eloi and Morlocks, he warns of Capitalism and its consequences to mankind. This vision which is presented in “The Time Machine” shows or rather forecasts the results of the social split between the leisurely wealthy upper class and the working class, especially in the Victorian England.
The concept of Social Darwinism was a widely accepted theory in the nineteenth-century. Various intellectual, and political figures from each side of the political spectrum grasped the theory and interpreted it in various ways. In this paper, we will discuss three different nineteenth-century thinkers and their conception of Social Darwinism. The conservative, Heinrich von Treitschke, and liberal Herbert Spencer both gave arguments on the usefulness of competition between people on a global scale. The anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, refuted the belief of constant competition among members of the same species and emphasized mutual aid.
Klin, Candyce. “Darwinism as A Cultural Issue” Cedar Crest College, 2 June 2001. Web. 17