a Darwinian view of the Constitution for non-Darwinian purposes
From Charles Kessler in Imprimis...
...FDR's and modern liberals' belief in a living constitution—that is, a constitution that is changeable, Darwinian, not frozen in time, but rather creative and continually growing. Once upon a time, the growth and the conduct of government were severely restricted because a lot of liberal policies were thought to be unconstitutional. In fact, many New Deal measures proposed by FDR were struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1930s. But nowadays it's hard to think of a measure expanding government power over private property and enterprise that the Court, much less Congress, would dismiss out of hand as simply unconstitutional.
Interesting in itself. But his use of "Darwinian" got me thinking about the conundrum that liberals believe in an "evolving" Constitution-- often in order to use government to (try to) help other people, a decidedly non-(Social)-Darwinian outcome.
posted by Eric Schansberg @ 10:00 AM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
Social Darwinism is now regarded as a pseudoscience; a rationalization for cruel, predatory social policies. Actual Darwinism (or at least modern evolutionary theory) understands that cooperation can be at least as adaptive as competition. Indeed, it is abundantly clear that one hallmark of humans—and the primary reason for our incredible success as a species—is our extraordinarily high level of cooperation: we frequently interact (and care for) people who are not closely related to us as if they were in our immediate extended family. This might not justify changing our understanding of the Constitution to allow use of the government to help people, or guide us as we reinterpret the Constitution, but it does suggest why such a project may make good sense.
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