Why isn’t this just a very short step from eugenics, Master Race concepts and all that horrific stuff?
It’s really no different than avoiding an ugly, stupid, ill tempered, foul smelling, irrational and sickly date.
The difference between this and Eugenics is this describes Conservatism and Liberalism, and explains what the underlying forces driving both are. This understanding doesn’t, per se create a prescription.
Now if you are K, what you want prescribed will be apparent. It is freedom, where each man rises and falls on their own merit. You can argue that is Social Darwinism, but in reality it is social K-selection. Everyone earns what they can produce in free interactions with others. It’s just freedom.
If you are r-selected, you will abhor this free environment, since you will be programmed to be horrified by any thought of free competition among men. You want that r-selected environment, where everyone has free resources available, all the time, regardless of ability, effort, or determination. This is not sustainable, as we are seeing now, and as a result, it will lead to desires for Eugenics, but only where the Liberal is the one who decides who breeds, and who get’s sterilized What the extreme left side of the spectrum wants, is in truth, Social Darwinism as well, but it is Social r-selection, where everything is apportioned to all equally, by force, and nobody enjoys any advantage. Absent aggressive Eugenics, it si unsustainable, and this is why the left has been so pro-eugenics throughout history.
The problem is everyone wants something “nice.” Nature, unfortunately isn’t nice. If you embrace Conservatism, some will invariably not demonstrate ability, effort, and determination, and they will not have as much as others. It’s not nice, but it isn’t cruel either, if private charity kicks in, which it will.
If you embrace Liberalism, the r-selected cohort will engage in promiscuity and single parenting, exploding their numbers on the freely available resources you provide. They will not contribute much, and they will feel entitled to a lot, and eventually, they will crash the entire system, bringing in K-selection with a bang, as we are about to see.
At this point, I am more about characterizing all of this than prescribing solutions, which I think are obvious to the Conservative intellectual.