ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Gilded Age,

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a period when everyone fished for more.

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How might someone who believed in Social Darwinism

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respond to the image?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ birds chirping ]

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Well, during the Gilded Age, extreme wealth

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managed to become even more extreme,

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particularly for big business owners.

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Let's see how followers of Social Darwinism would have

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felt about this survival of the richest.

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Would a Social Darwinist have responded

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to this image by saying A -

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Rockefeller benefited from the stable grounding of his parents?

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Hmm. Well, Social Darwinists thought the wealthy

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earned their money through superior minds and bodies,

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not from whatever tangible benefits

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their parents or the government might have given them.

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That's a no-go on A and on C.

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Could Social Darwinists have felt that B -

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Rockefeller was responsible for sharing his wealth with the poor?

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Well, many of these tycoons were in fact quite generous with

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their money, donating funds to build

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hospitals, libraries, and other public institutions.

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Social Darwinists, however, felt that Rockefeller

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had no obligation to help the unfit survive.

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Which means that Social Darwinists would have responded

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to the image by saying that D -

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Rockefeller's intelligence and strength led to his wealth.

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The main tenet of Social Darwinism

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was that the inherently strong

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would see their wealth and power increase

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while the inherently weak would see the opposite.

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So D is the correct answer.

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Under criticism that this natural selection

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of rich over poor was actually quite unnatural,

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Social Darwinism eventually fell out of favor

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and society shifted to a more evolved point of view.

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[ plop ]

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