The Lincoln-Darwin Debates

To the best of my knowledge, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin never actually met. I don't know of any record Darwin visited the United States in his travels, and I do know Lincoln never left the United States in his lifetime. Indeed, outside of these two gentlemen being human beings, English-speaking, and Caucasian, at first glance Lincoln and Darwin have very little that invites comparison. Even the most vehement debaters -- I appropriated today's blog title from the Lincoln-Douglas debates, a series of 1858 presentations which argued on popular sovereignty and arguably codified the then-infant Republican Party's stand on slavery among other issues -- have common ground; both sides want to achieve a positive result. It was after the respective gentlemens' deaths (Lincoln in 1865 and Darwin in 1882) that they became larger-than-life figures in their respective fields. Indeed, it's the consistent application and misapplication of their names and public statements and ideas which have led to much enlightenment as well as much suffering in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

　

If my language sounds really stilted, bear with me. I'm reading a book right now which was originally published in 1851, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the Western World, which in all honesty Lincoln and Darwin might have read. But on to business; both gentlemen were born on the same day: February 12, 1809. (By the way, 1809 is a banner year for a great many leaders and authors were born that year, but that's a topic for another blog.) In the United States where I live and am writing this from, today's best know for the birthday of Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. But even four years before he entered the White House, he was hardly the type of person who inspired confidence. Yes, he was intelligent (self-taught and only formally schooled for 18 months), he was shrewd, and he was a success in Illinois when he practiced law in Springfield, Illinois which he did most of his professional life save for a two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives during the Mexican War. On both sides of that, he wasn't a remarkable man. But it turns out that at the time, an unremarkable man (read: not prominent nationally) was just what the United States on the verge of civil war needed. Basically, Lincoln got the Republican Party's presidential nomination because the delegates would not unify behind any other candidate; he was the most electable person they had there. 

　

As I said, Darwin was born the same day as Lincoln was. While at university (which Lincoln never entered for being self-taught, see above paragraph) in England, his interests changed from medicine to theology to natural history. Indeed, his achievements there led to his appointment as ship's geologist for the Beagle on its five-year voyage around the world. His account of the journey -- actually, his first published work -- and his studies on the voyage led him to develop his theory of natural selection, the technical term for evolution which he's more associated with today. Though this was by far not the first attempt to formulate that biological idea, Darwin was so concerned about the potential fallout that he developed rebuttals for every argument and waited for nearly twenty years to publish The Origin of Species and was only motivated, I'd argue, to do it then in 1859 because a professional colleague was ready to debut a paper suggesting the same theory. And it was NOT that human beings are descended from monkeys, but more on that later. 

　

In today's multimedia "global village" culture, Lincoln wouldn't have stood a chance of getting to the speaker's podium, much less getting elected. Contemporary accounts describe his voice as high-pitched and squeaky; there was no denying that Lincoln was an excellent speaker (when that art had much higher regard) but his public addresses came across then -- but not so now, partly because of what we've been taught -- as simplistic and cliched. Of course, cliches in the 19th century were largely from Shakespeare and the Bible (also two good guesses for sources if you have no idea who said something, I learned from my high school academic coach). Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which the foremost orator of the day characterized as getting nearer to the point in two minutes that he did in two hours, is a model of simplicity. Even if he isn't remembered as the President who held the United States together when nearly everybody was against him, among many other things, we can remember than ten-sentence address as the ideal for what the United States -- indeed, what all of us at our best -- stand for. 

　

Please don't think I'm trying to give Lincoln or Darwin a new coat of glory paint; indeed, for their achievements that's up to the individuals studying or living through them. The Origin of Species, what would come to be known as Darwin's seminal work (even though in his lifetime he published other studies), is a proposal that human beings and indeed all primates descend from a common ancestor. That defuses the argument some religious fundamentalists make asking why there are still apes if Darwin's claiming we descended from them. He didn't. Natural selection -- essentially, what traits and ultimately what species pass from generation to generation based on adaptation to their environment -- found a wide audience of both supporters and detractors. Over time, this has gotten to be almost a celebrity deathmatch of religion vs. science. But nothing could be further from the truth, just as the Bible is hardly a textbook of biological study and natural science, so Origin is hardly a guide to ethical living and moral platitude. 

　

It's been nearly a century and a half since Lincoln and Darwin died, and we seem to have forgotten the men and focus more on their ideas. That's as it should be; we don't need more idols in a culture which already seems to worship (or at least pays lip service) to everything and everyone that's new and flavor-of-the-month. Over the generations, both Lincoln and Darwin, what they said and didn't say, have gotten used and misused to justify a lot. In the U.S. at least, Lincoln gets trotted out at nearly every election as a symbol of national unity and nearly every political party (Republican, Democratic, even Communist) and viewpoint counts Lincoln as an adherent if not an outright supporter of its ideas. The natural selection often elaborated as the theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin has been applied to every other science. When one nation totally overwhelms another, it's often cited as a "survival of the fittest" and has been used to justify atrocities that even today are hard to imagine. 

　

In the words of Jedi Master Yoda, "Wars don't make one great." And none of us are made great either when we use what we read and make the world conform to our vision for it. We become bullies, and whatever you can say of Lincoln and Darwin (indeed, whatever you can say of any leader), they didn't force their views on anyone, even when it would have been expedient to do so. Over time, the people they sought to convince of the rightness of their causes -- not necessarily their personal rightness -- came around to their way of thinking because it hadn't been forced on them. In whatever field we pursue and whoever we engage in the marketplace, we could stand to learn some things from Lincoln and Darwin. We may catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but what would we do with a lot of flies? The honey doesn't want the flies, we do. That's why we spread the honey, that's why we make ideas more appealling by putting ourselves in our opponent's shoes. How will we both benefit, and then how will our world be better as a result of that cooperation?

　

David