Social Darwinism as a Factor in the ‘New Imperialism’

"Man - the Finest of Machines": Transforming Human Nature Through Mental Hygiene in the United States and Soviet Russia, 1900-1930s.

“…The fear of degeneration neatly summed up the moderns' sense of crisis, and at the same time eugenics expressed the almost religious sense of possibility at the heart of modernity, by holding out the promise of transcendence, of improving the actual material of humanity itself. Koch argued that Social Darwinism's success stemmed in part from the increasing participation of the masses in politics, making it less rational and more emotional, and from the fact that statesmen have been able to mobilize the masses more easily in the name of the struggle for survival by invoking the specter of internal or external dangers (Koch 1984 (Illouz 2008:50). The tremendous success of Freud's ideas is due to the fact that they made seemingly sensible two countervailing demands on the modern self.…”