For my paper, I am writing about the different reactions to the ideas of social Darwinism, especially in the area of morals and religion. I am focusing on Caesar's column, as well as two non-fiction works on the topic by Robert Bannister and Richard Hofstadter.

This first article argues that the effects of social Darwinism are largely overstated by historians such as Hofstadter, and that Christian morality and economics made more of an impact on business life than social Darwinism. The article also mentions the anarchist Kropotkin, who we discussed briefly in class.

This second article discusses the social Darwinist tendencies of one of Donnelly's more widely-known contemporaries - Mark Twain. While many of Twain's early works have an optimistic tone, many of his later works take on a more pessimistic undertone emphasizing competition and struggle.

This cartoon clip shows Felix the Cat attempting to find a link between man and monkeys. Although created in 1920, after social Darwinism's popularity had largely faded and evolution was becoming more widely accepted, the cartoon still mocks the idea that man could descend from apes, while also emphasizing the role of struggle among the animal kingdom. In the clip, human society is placed upon the monkeys, reversing social Darwinism's attempt to apply animal practices to human society. In the end, it is the monkey who refuses to accept that he could possibly be related to man, rather than the other way around.